Lares
by The Demon's Song
Summary: On the Hunter-Gratzner, only two souls fought the pull of sleep entirely.  One was the restrained murderer named Riddick-the other was a soul who was never meant to be woken. In the dark of space, both killer and savior waited for escape.  HP/Riddick.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's note: This story contains slash, meaning a male/male pairing, between Harry Potter and Riddick. Don't say I didn't warn you. :) Otherwise, warnings for violence, discussion of psychological torture, and a slight AU of the Harry Potter series after the seventh book. I suppose I should warn for an AU of Pitch Black too, because while at first Harry's presence might seem to be the only change, my story will not run perfectly parallel to the movie by any means—I'm doing something new for the purpose of this story, and so don't expect people to die when you think they will, or for events to play out just like how they did in the movie. I hope you enjoy. :)**

**Disclaimer: Neither Harry Potter nor Pitch Black belong to me, nor will they ever. Consider me disclaimed, because I only write this out once per story. Suing me will only get you a couple of rings and two dollars in change, anyway, so please don't bother. **

The term cryo-sleep was, technically speaking, inaccurate.

It had been called cryo-stasis, at the start, back when it was first invented in the twenty-third century by three ambitious scientists. The first cryo-sleep pods, which were twelve feet tall and six feet wide, had been marketed that way: _cryo-stasis pods, for effortless, painless travel_, the slogan had gone. Most thought the initial commercial failure of those pods was caused by their inconvenient bulk, and this was partially the case; moreover, though, there was an overwhelming negative response to the name. _Cryo_, meaning frozen, and _stasis, _meaning an abnormal state of motionlessness, came together to form something that sounded, to most, too much like death. To lie in those bulky, mechanical, inhospitable pods was nerve-wracking enough—that process capped with the name cryo-stasis had made people uneasy about the method of travel. The next model of pods was smaller, only seven feet long by four feet wide, more comfortable, and also renamed. Cryo-sleep, in which long journeys seemed to occur overnight. Sleep was familiar: sleep was safe, where stasis was not.

That still didn't mean, though, that time spent inside the pods was spent sleeping. Sleep implied total unconsciousness, an utter lack of awareness in every part of the mind. Inside the pods, only the conscious mind slept. Marketing this minor detail would not have gone well, and so it remained an open secret. Still, the truth was widely known; in the pods, the snarling, feral force of what had once been called the id remained awake, conscious, and caged.

On board the cargo ship called the Hunter-Gratzner, forty living souls existed within this base state. Each of them had entered the ship a month before, for reasons of their own, and shuffled into cryo-sleep pods to prepare for the journey. The ship had launched from the interplanetary harbor on the blue planet Apollo, programed to follow a set trade route which would skim three planetary systems before touching down on Magdiel. It was not the most direct of routes, but it was, in a sense, the safest; away from any interstellar pirate fleets or merc ships looking for a take, the Hunter-Gratzner would pilot its way safely through the black without any danger of intercept. All those onboard, as they settled into the pods, were assured of their security by the captain over the comm system, as he read out the standard speech concerning passenger safety and emergency procedure. Having completed his checks, the captain ended the message by expressing the hope that the passengers would sleep well, before setting his ship to launch and situating himself inside his own pod. As soon as the ship left the ground, an automatic signal was released, activating the cryo-sleep pods and plunging forty souls into that semi-conscious state.

Some of the passengers settled quickly. Imam Abu al-Walid, peaceful in his faith, dropped into what was very nearly utter unconsciousness, with his apprentices following after. John "Zeke" Ezekiel and Sharon "Shazza" Montgomery, prospectors both, fell deeply into that resting state, though one might see, from time to time, a hint of a grimace cross Shazza's lips, or a growl begin to reverberate in Zeke's throat. An antiquities dealer named Paris P. Ogilvie also entered a near sleep, the only signs of his wakeful side being occasional quivers and shakes. Less deeply slept the fighters, whether by profession or nature; Carolyn Fry, in the pod allotted to the emergency docking pilot, clenched and unclenched both fists and teeth even as she slept; in the first passenger compartment, a man named William J. Johns, who wore the badge of an officer of the law, tossed in his rest, eyes darting under closed lids as if taking in his surroundings; a stowaway, teenaged child named Jack, who had been sent to sleep by the cryo-signal despite not being properly fixed in a pod, twisted and turned in the fashion of the guilty.

Of the entire Hunter-Gratzner passenger capacity, however, only two souls fought the pull of sleep entirely, clutching to the last remnants of wakefulness with a snarl. One of these two was the murderer Richard B. Riddick. Alert but bound, utterly immobile, Riddick watched his fellow passengers through the haze of the pods and thought, dreaming without sleep of escape. Riddick was strong, determined, deadly—no scholar, but his was a sharp mind when it benefited him. Which way were they going, what could he do, who could he exploit, was there enough time, _howwhenwhere? _A million questions, a million possibilities. Think and discard, choice to choice to choice; it was a long way to Magdiel, and Riddick would bide his time...

The second mind which lay awake did not belong to any of those in the passenger pods. In the second compartment, amongst such cargo as a pile of ancient weapons, a box full of crumbling yellow letters from time long passed, and a sarcophagus full of alcohol, there lay a pod secured to the floor. Across the pod stretched tape marked with the bold, bright-lettered words: DO NOT OPEN. This pod, unlike the new models which vertically lined the walls of the ship, was seven feet tall by four feet wide, unnecessarily bulky in the time of the Hunter-Gratzner. The glass of the pod, which was traditionally transparent enough to permit a view of the people inside, had been painted over with three layers of thick black paint, thoroughly obscuring the body held within. This pod, one of the oldest still in existence, had recently been on a long journey, one which would not end on Magdiel, but rather the planet Helion Prime; this ship was only a connecting flight for the pod which was never supposed to be opened, which held a soul which was never meant to be woken.

Inside the black-painted glass, a body lay. The form was male, black haired, and looked to be around twenty-five years of age—looked, but was not. When last he had been awake, the male had counted his age to be twenty-nine. He had not been awake for an almost impossibly long time. Neither, though, had he been asleep. Behind the closed eyes, a mind feverishly threw itself again and again at the restrictions of cryo-sleep, fighting and failing to claw its way into full consciousness. Like Riddick, the male in the black cryo-pod waited, without knowing the route on which he traveled, for a chance at escape. Unlike Riddick, the male was not bound within the cryo-pod. Instead of assuming the stillness the murderer Riddick had been forced into, the man in the black cryo-pod twisted and cried out in his rest, each movement causing a metallic clink as the dog tags around his neck were disturbed. H.J.P., they read in the dark. Harry James Potter, once hailed savior, fought against the bounds of his prison and motivated his struggle with half-recalled memories of sunlight, waiting for a chance.

Both these wakeful souls would get their wishes. The M-344/G planetary system was one of those the Hunter-Gratzner had been programed to pass; indeed, the ship had passed it a hundred times before in similar runs, at a bare minimum. That trip, however, a comet passed through the sky just as the Hunter-Gratzner approached the system, leaving a trail of debris behind it. On auto-pilot, the cargo ship lacked the necessary authority to reroute itself, and simply followed the pre-programed coordinates, propelling itself directly through the field of debris.

What followed was painful, chaotic, and largely inevitable. The hull was breached, the captain skewered, gravity set in, and on the bridge the docking pilot looked first to herself. The Hunter-Gratzner fell out of the black like a wounded bird, automatically attempting a landing on the nearest planet which could possibly support human life—planet number two of the system, a desert planet called Hades. The ship was too heavy, Carolyn Fry too frightened, and the switches all too easy to pull. Off went one compartment, another, and almost a third before the navigator sacrificed himself to save the passengers. A sliding crash ensued, with twenty-eight of the forty souls on board lost to a more permanent unconsciousness. It was then, as the Hunter-Gratzner was slowly destroyed by the impact with the planet's surface, that the ship's computers carried out the last of their automatic functions, releasing a pulse which released the hold of the cryo-sleep pods on the minds of the passengers. Generally encoded, the ship woke every living passenger, regardless of situation or status; slowly they came awake in the aftermath.

Riddick, who had never slept, found his cryo-pod conveniently opened by the damage caused upon landing. Even as the Hunter-Gratzner skidded to its final, shuddering stop, he stumbled out of the pod, bound but free. It would have been all too easy, then, to kill Johns outright before the man ever woke—Riddick considered this. Then, with a shark's grin to his teeth, Riddick turned and made for other parts of the ship. Johns would have to chase him this way. Made things more interesting.

(Didn't stop Riddick from taking Johns' gun, though—he wasn't an idiot. The grin got a little wider.)

In the second compartment, which had been jettisoned just before the cargo ship hit ground and so had come to rest not far behind the main body of the Hunter-Gratzner, a second cryo-pod received the signal to _wake. _Behind a layer of black-painted glass, Harry James Potter opened almost unnaturally green eyes.

**As of this moment, I have four more chapters of this story written. That means I can't update really fast, but also means that I can promise another update later this week, and another week of the same before I could even possibly run out of material. I'll try to keep this story updating regularly twice a week, especially because some of the chapters are quite short.**

**Please review! I love hearing from my readers. I write for myself, but I publish these online for you guys—if you get back to me and tell me what you think, that makes it easier for me to make sure everybody enjoys. I promise I'm going somewhere new with this story, something not usually seen in this fandom. You won't be disappointed. :)**


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's note: …..my readers spoil me. Seriously, I love you guys. The overwhelming positive response the first chapter got made me decide to post this chapter a day sooner than I planned. So, until my schedule really changes, this story will update every Thursday and Saturday. :) **

The first thing Harry did on waking was yawn, loudly and widely, a jaw-cracking sort of noise. His next action was to rearrange his body somewhat, brace his back against the floor of the pod, and slam his feet through the black glass, shattering the pod and tearing the carefully marked tape along with it. It wasn't the smartest thing Harry could have done—some of the shards hit him as they fell, slicing into his skin—but it was satisfying as hell. Sitting up in the wreckage of what had been his prison, Harry proceeded to stretch muscles which, without the cryo-sleep, would have atrophied, until he felt at least marginally more relaxed than he had before.

He didn't stand, not at first. Other than the fact that his legs were still a little weak, there was also the distracting instinct to take in his surroundings. One hand toying absently with a blunter bit of the glass, Harry did just that.

The pod he had lain within was neatly centered within a mid-sized room—or, as Harry looked to the metal walls and corrected himself, some sort of large storage container. There were no other pods in the room, nor any other people. Harry sat alone in a dimly lit space, which might have been pitch-black had the door of the container not been jostled slightly open to let in the faintest touch of bright sunlight. Wherever he had—Harry paused, looked at the crumpled metal walls of the container and the fine trail of sand along the compartment's floor—landed, it was daylight still.

Strewn along the floor of the container were a series of incongruous items. Harry made out bags at first, most of them ripped in places with burnt clothing spilling out. A shredded teddy bear lay just beside Harry's pod; whatever ship he had been on had held children. By contrast to the household objects, though, there was also a bulging bag of what looked to be rusting weapons, a metallic trunk which was open to reveal stored letters, and even what appeared to be a sarcophagus. "A cargo ship," Harry said aloud, to test his voice, which came out as more of a croak than anything else.

Observations complete, Harry carefully raised himself out of the wreckage of glass. After a moment of swaying on his feet, Harry's legs remembered old lessons and adjusted for balance, holding his weight rather than sending him tumbling back down. Harry's first few steps to the edge of the pod were precarious, like the steps of a child. By the time he had reached the edge of his former prison and levered himself over the side, he was moving with an echo of grace, suggesting that an ease of movement would return to him with just a little more practice. He stepped outside the pod with steady feet and, looking highly satisfied with himself, brushed the fragments of glass off his shirt and trousers, sprinkling bright dust to the ground below.

The first thing Harry looked at was the sarcophagus, mostly because he was bored and it seemed interesting. Inside, though, he found only bottles upon bottles of liquor. "I could get drunk," Harry rasped, amused at the notion—but no, he needed to be sober at least until he understood what was going on. Besides, the air felt hot inside the container, and would be hotter outside under the sun. The last thing Harry needed to do was dehydrate himself with alcohol. He closed the sarcophagus, took a second to wonder what strange person would hide antique bottles of liquor inside an elaborate coffin to begin with, and then turned and looked for something more useful.

"Weapons," he said, and ambled over to them, movements mostly smooth except for one near-fall on a particularly sandy patch. There was no shortage of them—spears, blades of all lengths and shapes, knives, shields, and even what looked to be a blow pipe. What _was_ lacking was quality. None of the weapons looked to be less than two or three hundred years old, which meant they were all suffering from blunt edges and coats of rust. Harry ran his fingers along edges without cutting himself, and found the balance off on every weapon he chose to heft. "No," Harry said, and discarded a spear. A promising sword fell away with another, "No." A repeated negative, until the weapons were one by one eliminated. Five, maybe ten minutes into the process, Harry gave up and retracted his arm.

"Useless," he croaked, even as he turned and promptly fell over a blade.

Harry landed on the scabbard, smacking himself in the ribs painfully; on instinct, his fingers curled around the sheath. He stood again, scabbard still clutched in his hand, and looked down at the weapon in irritation. Then the irritation went, leaving wide-eyes and a quirked eyebrow in its place. "I can't be that lucky," Harry said, and drew the sword.

He was. The sword he drew was two feet in length, with a slim, tapering blade which seemed to owe its origins to the older Roman _gladius. _It was not beautiful, because it had not been made for beauty; no gems decorated the blade, no intricate metalwork stretched along the blade. The sword was short, functional, and almost entirely free of rust. Harry held it by the hilt and felt it fall into his hand as though it belonged there. The touch of a finger proved it was still sharp. The blade seemed to almost hum when Harry's blood trailed a thin red path along it. "I s'pose he meant it when he said you would follow me anywhere," he informed the sword, which hummed more strongly before falling quiet in his grip. Harry sheathed the sword with a smile.

The sword belt, of course, hadn't been so kind as to trail him into space as well, so Harry had a few interesting moments of fumbling about with the sword and scabbard, trying to find the best way to secure the sheathed blade to his body. At last Harry gave up and scavenged through the clothing of the other passengers. Harry wasn't fond of stealing, quite honestly, but he didn't have much of a choice. "Besides," he said aloud, voice still little more than a rasp, "they could all be dead anyway." Cheerful, no—practical, yes. Harry wound up finding a black belt strong enough to hold against the weight of his sword, though he had no idea what it was made of; it was long enough to wrap twice around his waist before buckling. He slid the scabbard in, examined it, and nodded in approval. From the bags he also liberated a few spare shirts and pants that looked as though they might fit him, and all these he placed inside the most intact of the canvas bags he could locate.

Harry did a sweeping second check of the storage container, looking for anything useful he might have missed. He'd half hoped to find his wand, or any wand at all, but there was no sign of any sort of magic within the compartment—neither he nor the other passengers seemed to have any tie to magic, which meant he would have to be careful using what few spells he had mastered wandlessly around survivors. No water appeared either. When Harry exited the container, he did so with only himself, his sword, and the clothes he had located. "Still better than I entered it."

The sun shone bright as Harry stepped into it, leaving the shade of the container's doors. No—that wasn't right. Two suns shone in the sky. Harry stopped, looked again, and was forced to accept something even more implausible. "Three suns?" He shaded green eyes with one hand and looked around, taking in the trail of destruction and remnants of the main body of a ship even as he did so. "What kind of planet needs three fucking suns?" The oxygen levels were low too; Harry felt as though he'd half-lost a lung and was unlikely to find it again any time soon. All the world, save for the obvious human intrusion that was the wreckage, seemed to be sand dunes and glaring reflections of the sunlight.

Harry sighed, rubbed his eyes, and said, "I'm getting too old for this."

What he was definitively too old for was sulking. Ten years before—by his body's count, anyway, if not by the actual years passed, and wouldn't that be confusing?—he'd had a great tendency to do just that. He refused to do it now. Setting his bag more comfortably over one shoulder, Harry stepped back into the cooler, shaded area of the container's doors and thought.

"Most likely place to be survivors is at the center of that wreck," he predicted aloud. "_Who _would have survived, though? Criminals, ordinary civilians, military? Could be dangerous either way, especially if any of them know my name." Unconsciously, his hand came up to clench at the dog tags hidden under his shirt; they clacked together as his fingers folded around them. After a moment, he continued, "Won't use my name, then." Whether or not he would go was really not a question at all. Being marooned on an alien planet without any information either on the planet in question or even the date, let alone any resources like water, was not a comfortable situation to be in. Harry would have to find someone living, or else his time on the planet would be a little more interesting than he wanted to consider.

The final choice, then, was whether to walk or see if he could manage a wandless Apparition. A little physical exercise was good for a body, no doubt, but Harry didn't think that a trek across hot sand and inferior air would do much of anything for his newly awoken body except dehydrate and exhaust it. On the other hand, though, Apparating to places he'd never seen before was hardly a walk in the park, and this would be a damned annoying place to splinch himself. Picking up pieces of himself from sand dunes was not a good way to start a morning. It would all depend, then, on his magical reserves.

Harry looked out at the overly-bright, overly-warm world and considered the easiest way to test his supply of magic. Sand was hard to work with, everyone knew that, and unless he felt like attempting transfiguration, it wasn't going to do him much good. Turning, he looked back inside the container. Nearest him was a pack of clothing he had already looked through. Harry looked at it, then said, "Yeah, I could do levitation."

Magic with a wand, though, was different than without. A stick of wood, a proper channeling core, swish and flick and two words of four syllables each, and then an object was aloft: things weren't quite so easy when the wand was taken out of the equation. Harry had been trained in wandless magic, though that had been a long time ago by conventional standards. Seeing as most _everything_ Harry had done had occurred in that long ago time anyway, he wasn't overly worried. His body remembered what to do even before he did, and was already pooling his magic in his core before he thought to ask it to. The secret to wandless magic was a concentration of magic within the caster, using his or her own body as the channel, effectively making the human body into a wand substitute. Wands, however, did not have organs, or sensitive internal processes that would take badly to a sudden influx of magic, which was part of what made wandless magic difficult. If used improperly, it could literally send a person's body into shock, sometimes fatally so. It was a nuisance at times, the caution required to safely use the magic; Harry didn't even attempt it until he was sure he remembered the route his magic ought to follow through his body. After that he merely had to set it into movement along that route, which he did—wandless magic was easy once the internal factors were taken into account. With a swish and flick of his wrist for accuracy's sake, Harry focused on the shirt and said, "Wingardium Leviosa," and felt the magic leave his fingers.

Everything went wrong then. It was simple magic, one of the first charms Harry had learned, one of the first he'd mastered without a wand, and so it ought to have moved smoothly. Instead it fought, twisted and wrenched within his grip, trying to escape back into his body. It was almost, he thought, stupidly, as though it was _running _from something.

And then it hit him and Harry knew it was, the magic was running. He didn't know what from, couldn't explain in words, but there was something that had reared up when he cast, something old and angry and very very hungry that came from the planet itself—maybe it was the planet, or maybe it was even older than that—a consciousness, unpleasant sentience that found the power so kindly offered and hooked in and bit and bit and _would not let go. _Harry jerked his magic back towards his body, determined not to have it eaten, and engaged in a demented tug of war. Pull and pull and pull and pull, with claws-fingers-teeth catching and pulling back, trying to drag his magic away, trying to drag it _downdowndown _into depths Harry couldn't see with his eyes. Pull and pull and something tore. A bit of his magic, dragged away and gone, lost to Harry; the consciousness crooned in delight and ate it as it went, and Harry could feel it go, it hurt—before the thing could come for him again he tucked his magic back inside himself and closed off his barriers, locking his magic deep inside his form where it could not be touched again.

Harry fell to his knees and gasped. His magic would survive, but it was injured. He had a headache. His whole body was in pain. "Oh, fuck," he said emphatically, dragging in deep gulps of the planet's thin air. It was too much.

In a storage container, some small distance from the wreckage of the Hunter-Gratzner, Harry James Potter closed his eyes and collapsed, unconscious, to the sandy floor.

**Trala. Please continue to be as amazing as you were last chapter. I loved every review I got, and responded to each of them (save for my two anonymous reviewers, and I adored your reviews too). Thanks also have to go to everybody who alerted or favorited this story. As ever, any feedback I get is appreciated, so drop a review if you've the time. :) I hope you enjoyed.**

**Next chapter: What _has _our favorite serial killer been doing whilst Harry was getting himself knocked unconscious?**


	3. Chapter 3

**Author's note: Our dear Riddick is a hard man to write, loves. He doesn't think like everyone else—you can tell that from his thoughts in the first few minutes of the movie—but knowing that and being able to make it work are two different things. Here's my humble attempt to get inside his head. Warning this chapter for Riddick's colorful language. :P**

Starships came with a lot of places to hide in. Always had, always would. Convenient. Even a little ship like the one he was transported on—cargo carrier, forty people, most of 'em dead now—had its nooks and crannies. Escape was the other way, escape was out, but he went in instead. Dropped down a floor from where he'd been held. He was bound, arms and legs together and eyes still covered, mostly blind and stiff. Out meant running from an unharmed Johns, moving fast, keeping unseen—couldn't do that with shackles. In, though, in meant a chance to piss the fuck out of Johns before he got caught again.

Down a floor were more cryo-pods. Riddick could smell them, smell the people who had been in them. Dead, dead, dead. Nothing like the smell of rot to wake a man up in the morning. He could've hid in one of the pods, but he passed them all and kept going. Hiding in one of them would be obvious. Boring.

It was hard to find a spot without his eyes, but Riddick managed. Up across the ceiling there were vent pipes. Riddick could hear them, air moving in them fast. They'd have to be thick to hold a flow like that, have to be strong. Strong enough to hold his body weight for a little while, anyway.

He threw the gun away, heard it land between two pods. Johns would see it, but that was good. He wanted to be seen.

Riddick gauged the distance between floors and pipes—close enough—bent his tethered legs, and leaped. His arms caught the tubes, wrapped around them. Nothing broke, nothing fell. Perfect. He curled up his legs and listened to Johns clatter down the stairs.

Took the other man a long time to get to where Riddick was hiding—too long. Fucking Johns with his shiny guns and his off-color righteousness, thought he was the king of the fucking world, but he couldn't even find one little criminal in an empty room. It was embarrassing. Riddick had been caught by _that? _

Got it right eventually, though. Johns passed under Riddick's feet and Riddick could taste the acceleration of his heartbeat. _Do I scare you, Johns? _Then Johns saw the gun and Riddick saw his chance. In a second his legs were around Johns' neck, feet getting nice and snug with his carotid arteries. Johns choked on the same chains he'd tied Riddick up with. Riddick almost didn't mind the assault stick Johns tried to bludgeon him half to death with—not after that lovely bit of poetic irony.

There was a second, just one, when Riddick had a choice. It would be so, so easy to snap Johns' neck. Just one good twist, a crunch, and Johns could say good-bye to his spine, his career, his life. So fucking easy to get rid of him. Riddick could've done it, too. He had no fucking conscience to get in the way, no split second guilt-caused delay for Johns to use. If he wanted the motherfucker dead, Johns would _die. _Easy.

So he didn't do it. Of course he didn't. It was _too _easy. Too quick, too painless. Johns had caught Riddick—not just once. Over and over, stalking him out like some sort of bloodhound. There was a second when Riddick could've _ended _William J. Johns, but it wasn't the right moment. Johns would get what was coming to him. Eventually. But there had been that moment, and Riddick knew it, and Johns knew but would deny it, and that was all that mattered. Even when the vents broke at last and Riddick crashed to the ground, Johns was the one who had looked weak.

_Posture all you like. _Man dragged him back, tied him up but good, taunted him, but that didn't fucking matter.

Riddick would kill Johns one day, and that day would be soon.

(For now, he grinned after Johns' retreating back and flexed his shoulders, smelling the rust of the column he was held to, feeling the gap in the metal. Johns thought it was too high above him to be of use—nobody could get their arms through that tied up like he was, not without dislocating their shoulders first. Nobody. Riddick rolled his shoulders in their joints.)

**I hope y'all enjoyed! I adore you folks—the reviews I've gotten so far have all made me a very happy author. To the reviewers I couldn't respond to—the anonymous ones, or the ones with private messaging disabled—thanks ever so much for reviewing. I read and appreciated all of your responses, even though I couldn't answer them as I might have liked to. :)**

**If you've read and enjoyed, just drop me a review really quick and make my day, wouldya? *grins* As ever, thanks to everyone who reviewed last chapter, and all those who alerted or favorited this story of mine. **


	4. Chapter 4

**Author's note: I am so, so sorry I skipped over posting last Saturday—real life ate me, and my computer ate the chapter I had written, leaving me with zero time to rewrite it. I'll do my best to make sure it doesn't happen again. As a consolation prize, though, this chapter is significantly longer than the last one I posted, and has multiple points of view. :) Enjoy, my lovely readers.**

Shazza _hated _this planet. Maybe that wasn't quite fair, seeing as it had done nothing to her, but...

It was inhospitable at best. Admittedly, Shazza hadn't seen much of the planet—so far their exploration of the planet had been limited to what they could see crawling moving through the wreckage—but from what she had seen, it was all desert. Everywhere, there was sand; for someone who wasn't used to walking only on sand, the sudden slips, dips and slides it could perform were alarming for travel. There wasn't wind, either, which was a mixed blessing and curse, seeing as wind would've simultaneously meant a driving force to push sand into eyes and clothes, and also a relief from the heat. On top of all that there was the heat itself, which was only to be expected from a planet lit by three suns; the suns also meant there would be no clear cut day or night, and Shazza knew that would be disturbing her body's sense of time and sleep patterns soon. Then there was the air, far too low in oxygen for her comfort, and even the lack of water or food. Shazza hadn't even seen a hint of prey animals or vegetation, either, so it wasn't like they could hunt or scavenge for a meal. A lot of people would do really stupid things in conditions like these, and Shazza really didn't want to see that happen.

From atop one section of the wreckage, Shazza shaded her eyes as best she could and took another sweeping glance around her surroundings. She'd been trained, almost since youth, to understand a planet's geography and climate, as well as to quickly identify any usable resources it might produce. Even with the disorienting crash and unpleasant planet as unfavorable conditions, the fact remained that Shazza was a prospector—from a long line of them, actually. She and Zeke had been all set to catch a connecting flight off Magdiel, headed for a new little planet in one of the outer systems. They were settlers. Part of what they did was find new places and send out roots in them; settlers were, more often than not, the anchors of a community, of a planet, and places could fail without them. Zeke was new to the concept, all caught up in marriage to her and stories of her family's successful settlements across hundreds of planets in years passed, but it was Shazza who'd been born to it. She knew all the little signs that would point to a planet being inhabitable over a long term, all the tiny details which might show the presence of water or edible food.

Shazza's concentration was broken by Zeke's familiar voice saying, slightly impatiently, "Well?" By reflex, Shazza's gaze snapped to watch her husband's face. In the glaring sunlight of the desert planet, Zeke looked a little different than she was accustomed to—his eyes looked darker, the lines of his face more worn, and his expressions seemed muted, in a way. It took her a moment to identify the half-smile he wore as the one he used when she looked at him with the sort of deep scrutiny she usually turned to the land. In another place and time, she knew he would have accompanied that look with teasing. It was a tribute to the stress they were under that the smile faded as quickly as it had come. Zeke ran a hand through his hair and asked her, quietly, "Any luck, lady love?"

Shazza knew every sign there was to know—she'd made sure of that, with her father's help. "Not a one," she answered, shaking her head.

Zeke touched the small of her back and said, "One last look, yeah? And then maybe we can check farther away from the wreck." He said it knowing there would be nothing to see, not here—Shazza knew it too. If there was anything to see, she would have seen it.

She shaded her eyes anyway, and turned towards the sand of the horizon, looking for any sign that could bring them their key to survival.

…

People, when put in hostile situations, would do almost anything to survive. William J. Johns, bounty hunter, would do more than most.

Johns was a survivor, at heart. He was a swine bastard, a rotten son of a bitch, a motherfucking psycho—and he'd been called worse than that, too—but more than anything else, he was a survivor. Ruthless, selfish William J. Johns always came out alive, always came out on top, always came out the victor, no matter what it cost him. Children, partners, lovers, friends: they were nothing. Johns was the central and only occupant of his little world. Everybody else was collateral.

Which was why, when Johns looked in on his prisoner and there was no prisoner there, it was a problem. Riddick was a threat. When he'd been a kept, collared threat, locked up in the dark of his own eyelids and the comforting weight of restraints, Johns had been willing to keep him on the ship. He'd tied him up nearby so he could keep an eye on the crazy fucker—and now Riddick was gone from under his nose, chains slipped and useless. Now Riddick was a shark again, a lurking predator, a set of barred teeth just _dying _to close on Johns' throat. And Johns didn't like threats.

_Kill the bastard, _Johns thought at first, hands in fists, looking at the pillar that hadn't been enough to stop Riddick. He could see what Riddick must have done—dislocated his own shoulders, the crazy fuck, and rotated them all the way up just to shimmy through a narrow gap. Riddick would stop at nothing, and nothing would stop Riddick. He knew that. _So kill him before he kills you._

But Riddick was a pay check. Dead, he was a few month's bills, twelve shots of morphine, a whore, and a cheap birthday card for Johns' batshit sister. Alive, Riddick would pay half a life of comfort, a better apartment. Johns' eyes itched in recognition of the fact that alive, Riddick was a hell of a lot of morphine.

So Riddick had to live. As long as Riddick's reward was worth more than complete safety, the bastard would stay alive. But not free. There wasn't enough money in the world to make Johns trust a free Riddick. Bastard was crazy. Johns needed him alive, but Johns needed himself alive more than that.

Johns turned around, made for the passenger compartment where everyone else had stayed. He would need some distractions to catch Riddick. The woman, Fry, was pretty enough to be bait—the holy man and his boys could make for cannon fodder, if it came to that.

A man and his paycheck, that was all.

The survival of the others was optional.

…

"We can't go after him _unarmed_," Carolyn Fry insisted, urgency in her voice.

William Johns leveled his eyes with hers and tapped his fingers on his firearm. "We aren't."

"And what about the rest of us, Johns? You expect us to just walk up to Riddick without weapons of our own?"

The two, already becoming the default leaders of their little dysfunctional group, wound through the ruined body of the Hunter-Gratzner, voices raised slightly in argument. Johns, the stronger of the two, thought bitterly that the others might follow his orders over hers, if it weren't for the fact that Fry had the advantage of being their captain. Fry, whose power depended on an official post she didn't technically hold, was thinking of nothing more than not getting any more of the ship's passengers killed under her watch.

"What do you want me to do, Fry?" Johns inquired, voice blending sarcasm and anger and impatience. "Where am I s'posed to make weapons appear from?"

It so happened that at that moment, they passed Paris P. Ogilvie in the hall.

Johns, seeing the opportunity to make his point, caught the man by one arm. "Do you deal in weapons? Antiquities, right—does that include maybe a sword or two, a spear?" He looked to Fry again, catching her eyes and holding them as he added, "Maybe we can bring down Riddick with a _blow pipe. _So, Paris, do you?"

Paris, unaccustomed to rough handling and thrown off guard by the abrupt tirade, answered both honestly and shakily, "Yes. I'd a shipment of weapons with the rest of my cargo, in the second compartment of the ship."

Silence struck the corridor for a moment. Then Fry smiled, eyes bright, and Johns released Paris. Spat ended by a turn of good fortune, the two took off down the hall again. "Second compartment looked pretty intact," Carolyn was saying, just as the two turned a corner and disappeared from Paris' line of sight.

Paris blinked twice, owlishly, before he seemed to realize what had occurred. "Those weapons are mine," he informed the empty hall. He followed after Johns and Fry. "I'll expect reimbursement!"

…

Shazza watched the others go, from her post on the wreckage.

Riddick was free. Just thinking it made the little hairs on the back of Shazza's neck stand up—she was a prospector, not a warrior, and murderers with no sense of restraint scared her as much as they ought to—but there was nothing she could do about it for the moment. She, along with the holy man and the children, had been elected to stay behind and watch the ship. "Riddick could come back," Johns had told them. Hell, what was Shazza supposed to do about it if he did?

Zeke, of course, had volunteered to help carry the weapons, so she didn't even have the comfort of knowing he was close by. Now he was just one of the moving figures ahead of her, blurred by the reflection of the suns off the sand just like everyone else, barely recognizable due to distance. Shazza knew she ought to be looking for Riddick—that was why she'd been posted as sentry after all, to use her honed eyes to look for unusual movement in the desert, to listen for a sound that would break the natural shift of sand and alert her to the murderer's presence—but, for some reason, she couldn't drag her eyes off the other survivors trekking across the sand.

In the end, they were nothing more than a line of color against the sand, moving across dunes with unsteady feet and shrinking away from the heat of the suns.

Shazza hoped they came back with the weapons soon, and caught Riddick soon after. She hated the way that feeble line of color against the yellow-white expanse of the desert made her think. Still, though, she couldn't stop thinking, anymore than she could tear her eyes away.

Could that straggling line of color—could they, humans who through some twist of luck had already survived one disaster—really stay alive in this foreign place?

…

Harry woke up to the feeling of someone tripping over him. It wasn't the most pleasant way to wake, all things considered.

He rolled over, causing something to smack into his side. "Ow," Harry said, voice muffled against the sandy metal he was laying on. "Oh, fuck, _ow._"

Everything hurt—there literally was not a single part of Harry's body that was chiming in as being healthy. His ribs had taken a second impact with his sword and were not pleased; his legs had been folded awkwardly under his body and were now stiff; his stomach was reminding him that he had had nothing to eat the whole time he was in cryo-sleep; his lungs, taking deep drags of the dry air, were not happy with the burning sensation that was coming with every inhale; his mouth was dried out; he had a headache the size of a small planet. His ears rung a little bit as they strained to take in the noises around him.

"...look at..."

"...don't open? D'you think he could..."

Voices. Human voices. Harry remembered that those were a problem, though the reason why wasn't coming to him in any hurry. A hand pressed at his shoulders—he turned away from it on instinct, curling up his abused feeling body so as to best shield himself. There was a metallic clink, and then the hand caught at his throat, tugging at something.

"...HJP. What does that..."

"...his name?"

"Who the fuck is..."

HJP—they were his initials. Nausea surged in Harry's stomach. They knew his initials, they could know his name. That was dangerous. If they knew him they would put him back to sleep, cage him up again.

By sheer force of will, Harry forced his eyes to open. Four pairs of feet surrounded him, all wearing scuffed looking boots and covered in dust. One woman and three men, if the sizes were anything to go by.

"Is he a threat?" Harry heard, ears finally making out a full sentence.

Alarmed, Harry managed to lunge half-upright, upper body coming off the floor, legs straightening out. The action pulled his dog tags away from the man who'd been gripping them, and pushed him away from the others by some small distance. "Who are you?" Harry rasped at the four, taking in their faces. A woman, blonde and startled—a mousy looking, bespectacled man, who looked more afraid than anything—a man with darker skin than the others, looking surprised and more than a little wary—a blue-eyed man who watched Harry like he was a target. It wasn't until Harry clenched his fingers that he realized he'd grasped the hilt of his sword automatically at the first sign of a threat.

The blue-eyed man and the woman exchanged glances, before the blue-eyed man spoke in a pleasant drawl. "The real question is, who are _you_?"

The whole five second interaction told Harry a few things. First, the woman and the blue-eyed man seemed to be the leaders of the group before him, which meant the other two would probably take their cues from them. More importantly, the blue-eyed man who spoke too lightly would be able to do a world of harm to Harry and probably feel no guilt over it after. Harry was weak and surrounded by enemies. His head spun, and for a moment he barely managed to stay upright. "My name is Harry," he answered, avoiding the main point of the question until he could figure out what answer would allow him to remain unharmed and unshackled.

"HJP," the woman put in, in a voice that struck Harry as accented. She stared down at him, hands on her hips, confident of her safety. Maybe she wasn't dangerous in the same way the blue-eyed one was, but she seemed to have power and a backbone, at least. That made her worth watching. "The last two initials?"

Harry shook his head—bad idea, considering it made the world shake. Maybe he'd gotten a concussion when he hit the ground? "Why do you care?" he asked.

A gun was cocked, safety clicking off. Harry didn't need to look up to know the blue-eyed man would be the one holding it. The metal of it didn't quite press into Harry's head, instead being held a few centimeters away, still close enough that Harry could feel the heat radiating off of it. "Answer the nice lady," the blue-eyed man told him.

He'd never been good at coming up with false names off the top of his head. "Harry," he said again, and then the rest seemed to spill out without permission, "James Potter." He tensed even as he said it. His sword seemed to slide a little out of its sheath, buzzing in his grip, even though he was in no state to wield it.

"Are you a soldier?" the woman asked, pointing to the dog tags which had settled over his chest. Harry felt himself relaxing even as she said the words. The woman, at least, didn't seem to know him. Maybe the others wouldn't either? Maybe—Harry's heart raced, and his breath tried to catch in his throat—maybe he would be free.

"You could say that," he rasped in answer.

"Strange place for a soldier to be," the blue-eyed man pointed out. Harry looked to him obligingly, and caught the end of an expansive gesture which was probably meant to point out the cargo container they were in. "Transported in an antique cryo-pod along a shipping lane, on one of the most backwater routes used by mankind?" The blue-eyed man stepped back towards the pod even as he kept the gun trained on Harry's head. "I don't think this even had a release valve," the man continued. "A soldier in a cryo-pod that wasn't meant to open from the inside?"

The darker skinned man, who Harry hadn't paid much attention to up to that point, added in, "There was tape stretched along the whole thing, too. Marked DO NOT OPEN."

Interestingly enough, the blue-eyed man seemed irritated by the interruption, though it helped to prove his point. Harry realized, a little later than he would have normally, that the blue-eyed man was posturing. The show he was putting on was to gain the respect of the people he was with. The leadership of the group was probably more unevenly split than Harry had thought, then—either the woman held most of it and the blue-eyed man wanted balance, or the man just wanted it all for himself. "So, Harry James Potter," the blue-eyed one went on, "what sort of soldier are you, then?"

Harry didn't have an answer. Backed into a corner, he did the last thing he could think of—he pushed himself fully upright, standing on unsteady feet, and drew his sword. "Don't," he told the room at large, though even he wasn't sure what he was saying. Harry just wanted to rest until the pain stopped, to stand still until the room stopped spinning. He didn't want to deal with this.

The mousy looking man frowned and said, "That sword is one of mine—." He fell silent with a soft noise of distress when the blade swung towards him.

"Just try to take it," Harry spat, free hand pressing to his forehead. The sword hummed with him, and it could merely have been the pain confusing Harry, but he was sure for a moment that it was somehow mocking the man with the glasses.

Then the solid weight of a gun barrel pressed to Harry's skull, and Harry realized that by turning on the mousy one he'd forgotten about the blue-eyed man. Stupid, he chided himself, and shut his eyes. Wearily, he sheathed his sword.

"That's better," the blue-eyed man said.

"Do you have cuffs, Johns?" the woman asked. The blue-eyed man, apparently named Johns, evidently did, as Harry felt his wrists tugged into place and bound behind his back a few moments later. "Are we gonna take him back to the ship?"

"We should keep an eye on him until we're sure he's not a threat," Johns responded.

Harry wasn't sure if he was the only one who heard the voice of the darker skinned man say, "'Cause that worked so well the first time." If he wasn't the only one, the others all seemed to ignore the comment.

"Go on, then, Potter," the woman said, "start walking."

Opening his eyes, he took two steps, gauging, and leaned against the doors of the storage container when he reached them. The movement made the world spin a little faster, but was otherwise bearable. Even if his head kept aching, most of the muscle aches would work their way out by the time he finished his trek to the ship. It wasn't an entirely pleasant thought, but at least it was something.

"Looks like I found the survivors," he muttered to himself, and nearly laughed. This was not what he'd been hoping for. He looked down to the canvas bag he'd dropped, full of supplies he wouldn't be able to bring, and wished he'd just walked in the first place.

"Hurry up," Johns said from behind him. With a slight sigh, Harry gave one final glance around the container and stepped outside of it, feet impacting on what was, fortunately, solid, compacted sand.

Flexing his arms against the cuffs, Harry picked as steady pace as he could manage and set off into the desert.

**As you might have noticed, I haven't written in accents for anyone—they're all just plain English. That's because, if I started writing in accents, it would take me forever to get right, and would wind up being redundant. I trust you to remember and imagine the voices of the actors, or just make up your own. :)**

**One note—since Riddick's POV last chapter was, overall, quite popular, you can expect to see him again. If you especially liked or disliked any of the points of view I tried out this chapter, tell me so, and I'll try to work my narration around that. :D**

**Thanks, as ever, to everyone who read and reviewed! Your feedback means a lot to me. I haven't responded to reviews of the previous chapter on account of the fact that my time is a bit limited lately, but I usually do respond privately to each and every review I get. So, if you've the time, please do review—it helps me make the story better. Thanks too to everyone who alerted or favorited Lares.**

**Next chapter: The search for Riddick starts, and Harry finds himself being dragged along. Will our boys finally meet?**


	5. Chapter 5

**Author's note: And we're back on schedule, with the longest chapter yet. :) Once again, multiple POV's, including another appearance from our dear Riddick, and a peek into Harry's past. Enjoy. :D**

Harry dreamed.

_He remembered the newspaper. It was strange how well the image stuck, actually—he didn't usually remember things so vividly. Even years later, he remembered it almost perfectly. Thin, off-white paper marked by headlines going in every which direction, words spiraling about in tumbles of grey and black. It was a wizarding paper, certainly; not the Daily Prophet, which had been essentially dissolved a few months before, but rather the newest source of wizarding news, the Gordian Knot. He supposed the new paper's title might be considered clever, considering that a controlling investment in the paper was held by none other than Theodore Nott himself._

_ The main headline that day had been about the latest development in the Muggle Influence Studies. He had to hand it to Nott—the man wasn't stupid. Where the Daily Prophet would have blared Harry's name across the front cover in bold letters, and had on multiple occasions, Nott did things more subtly. The article concerning Harry was neatly placed near the bottom right of the page, large enough to be obvious but small enough to avoid being glaring. In softly swirling letters, the article's title announced: _Harry Potter's Childhood Revealed. _The title did not accuse him of having been Influenced: nor did the body of the article itself. Instead, it told the story of Harry's younger years, in a factual sort of way that was, to Harry's great irritation, uncomfortably accurate. The only things that betrayed Nott's true purpose were occasional phrases like _Despite the efforts of Harry's Muggle family, Harry attended Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Writing _or _his Muggleborn best friend, Hermione Granger, spent the better part of that year petrified. _Harry, though, knew what Nott was doing, and he didn't like it._

_ "Nott's building up to asking for your Reeducation," Hermione informed him as he set the paper down. Harry had a brief moment of vertigo, a dizzy sort of feeling that his world was trying to turn inside out. Wasn't there something wrong with discussing this over breakfast? In front of Harry sat a bowl of oatmeal, and beside that lay expert propaganda—between them was a spoon. A spoon to separate his hard-earned peace from the advances of the newest enemy. "Of course, he'll be after Ron and I as soon as he gets you."_

_ Harry picked up the spoon and watched his distorted reflection in its chipped surface. "So let's not let him get me."_

_ "You have a plan?" Hermione asked. _

_ Harry shook his head. "Ron did," Harry said, pointing towards the ceiling—in the room above them, Ron slumbered on. "Back at the beginning—it sounded stupid then, but...let's go underground."_

_ Hermione started to say, "Underground?" just as the dream—Harry knew this was a dream, knew he was asleep, but couldn't quite wake up—shifted. And then she was screaming._

_ Harry thrashed against the ropes at his wrists and ankles. He was blindfolded, but he knew what he would see if he could open his eyes—nothing. Even without the blindfold, Harry would have been swimming in darkness so complete that he couldn't even see his hand in front of his eyes if he tried. Somewhere in that darkness, Hermione was in pain. "Let her go," he realized he was saying, under his breath, over and over. He drew in air and gave it volume. "Please let her go!" Suddenly the sound of Harry's dog-tags clanking with his movement was the only noise in the room. "Hermione?" he asked, tentatively, unsure of whether she'd fallen quiet of her own will or been silenced. _

_ She whimpered, and he was relieved and sickened at the same time. "Let her go," he told the silence. A sound came, like a door swinging open and shut, and Harry knew he and Hermione were alone. It was over, at least for a little while. He shifted in his ropes, wanting more than anything to go to his friend, and the dream shifted with him—_

_ And Harry was back at the kitchen table, spoon in his hand, looking across at Hermione. Hermione, uninjured and whole, asked, "Underground?"_

_ It was as if nothing had happened. In the part of his mind that knew he was dreaming, Harry recalled that nothing had happened—not that day. Not yet. "We tried resisting publicly," Harry said. "You saw what that got us." He pointed the tip of the spoon at the newspaper, watching the words twist and reflect along the metallic surface. _

_ Hermione frowned in thought, but nodded slowly, seeming to accept the idea. "What will we do?" she asked._

_ Harry said, hating himself even as he spoke the words, "To start, I think we need to find Nicodemus Crane."_

_ The dream plummeted, shrieking, into pain and darkness—_

Harry woke with the name Nicodemus on his lips.

He sat upright, gasping for breath. It wasn't until his handcuffed wrists caught on the metal of a pillar that he remembered where he was: in the belly of a crashed ship, on a planet that had attacked him, amongst people who had questioned him, threatened him, and taken his sword away. It was no wonder that the first real sleep he'd had in so many years had wound up in nightmares.

Sweating slightly, Harry took deep breaths of the thin, hot air until his heart settled. It comforted him a little to see his sword leaning against a wall only a few feet away. He doubted they'd left it there; it was good to know his sword was planning on making a point of staying nearby. His head hurt a lot less than it had the last time he woke up, and the world was finally steady, but that didn't mean he was well enough to defend himself barehanded. The bit of protection the sword would offer made him feel less trapped, even though he couldn't reach the sword while handcuffed. Harry stretched, trying to decide whether or not he should stay awake.

"You talk in your sleep," a young voice informed him.

Harry twitched, looking to the door defensively. Leaning against the frame was a boy of maybe thirteen at the oldest, who watched him almost hungrily. "They aren't gonna let me look for Riddick," the boy informed him. Nothing about the sentence made sense to Harry—who was Riddick, and what did that have to do with anything? "But they're taking you with them because they think you're a threat. I came to see you because I thought you might be like Riddick." Sounding disappointed, the boy went on, "You don't look dangerous to me."

"Kid, what're you talking about?" Harry asked, his voice still a rasp.

"I'll tell you if you tell me who Nicodemus is," the kid offered, taking half a step inside the room. The curiosity in his eyes dimmed a bit when Harry stayed silent. "Fine," the boy said, shrugging his shoulders. He then turned and left the room quicker than Harry could respond, slipping into the hallway beyond and going out of Harry's field of view.

Harry, thoroughly confused, almost called for the boy to wait. He stopped only as he heard the sound of more people approaching from the opposite direction of the one the boy had left in. The sentence, "But they're taking you with them because they think you're a threat," finally penetrated Harry's mind, just as the blue-eyed man—Johns, Harry remembered—stepped into the room. Behind him, just through the doorway, stood the blonde woman, joined by a dark haired woman, and the darker skinned man Harry had seen previously. Even as Johns advanced on him, Harry was making a note to ask for names; the titling was beginning to get tedious.

"You're coming with us," Johns told him, now close enough that Harry could have touched him had his hands been free. The frown that spread across Johns' face as he saw Harry's sword propped up against the wall was the best thing Harry had seen all day.

"Where're we going?" Harry put in, as Johns moved behind him to unlock his cuffs. Johns pulled Harry's right hand out of the handcuffs and tugged him upright, locking his hands back together once he was free of the pillar.

"For a walk," Johns said. "Go."

"We going to find Riddick?" Harry asked, voice more than a little snide. The question was aimed to irritate—if the way the blonde woman stiffened in the door was any indication, it succeeded. Harry wasn't entirely sure _who _Riddick was, but, going off reactions, he or she was definitely a touchy subject amongst this group.

"How d'you—," the dark-haired woman started, but Johns cut her off mid-question with:

"Don't ask questions, Potter." The dark-haired woman looked to Johns in annoyance, but as far as Harry could tell, the blue-eyed man took no notice. Just like that, the conversation was over. It looked like Johns' powerplay in the cargo compartment had helped out the man after all. Harry's pondering was interrupted by a rough shove between the shoulderblades that sent him lurching forwards. "Go," Johns growled again.

With one last glance to his sword, Harry did just that.

…

Something about walking into blue sunlight was alarming to Harry. He didn't doubt that they were going the right way—Johns seemed pretty sure of their route, at least. Still, something made him wish that Riddick had picked the other direction. The blue tint the light gave off made everything, including Harry's captors, look foreign. Suddenly the faces he had been learning looked alien under the changed light, and the sand dunes were even more difficult to move about on than before. Sometimes, Harry would catch glimpses of his own skin as they walked, or of beads of sweat that formed on his restrained arms, both things he had seen before hundreds of times in his life at least—under the blue sun's light, even those things suddenly seemed irrevocably different for no reason Harry could explain. Before, he'd felt like a stranger to the planet and even a stranger amongst the people he had landed with, but those things he'd been able to cope with. Being a stranger in his own skin was uncomfortable at best. Harry hated it.

From what he could see, none of the others were suffering from the same discomfort. The dark-haired woman walked just in front of him, her stride sure and efficient, her eyes constantly moving to take in their surroundings. At the very front of their column, Johns and the blonde woman walked nearly side by side, mouths moving in conversation that Harry couldn't hear; though Johns' hand stayed close to the gun strapped to his thigh, Harry was fairly sure that was typical for the blue-eyed man, and not a sign of any real worry. The holy man and the children who trailed after him had even seemed pleased by the color of the sunlight—apparently blue light was an indication that God was leading them towards water, though Harry's dubious grasp of the religion they followed made him unsure of whether even they were sure it was a true sign. They walked just behind Harry, calling out praise in the form of song, all in a language Harry couldn't understand. Frankly, all the noise they were making just put Harry more on edge. If they were going to find this Riddick person, shouldn't they be trying to be a little quieter?

So Harry walked, clanking cuffs marking his every step, and tried to restrain a fear he couldn't totally explain. Unlike the others in this group, he knew that something about this planet was decidedly hostile—his magic, curled up in his core like a wounded animal, would attest to that. As far as they knew, the greatest danger seemed to be the man or woman they were setting out after. Harry wasn't so sure.

The sand slipped under Harry's feet with each step, and, without the use of his arms to catch him if he fell, Harry had to take each movement slowly and cautiously. Before long, he was walking at the same pace as the holy man, and trying to ignore the stares of the children who tagged along. At least his presence had ended the unnecessarily loud song. Honestly, though, Harry found the scrutiny of the children equally unsettling.

Harry had been half certain they would continue to walk along in uneasy silence, but that was not the case. One of the children, likely the eldest if appearances could be trusted, took two quick steps towards Harry and tugged on his sleeve to catch his attention. A string of rapid-fire words left the child's mouth—though Harry understood none of them, he got the vague idea that a question had been asked. He shrugged helplessly, the movement wrenching his wrists slightly, and resigned himself to the idea that the only person willing to speak to him civilly was a child he couldn't understand. "I don't speak your language," Harry tried, in the hopes the boy might speak some English. Instead, an equally confused expression crossed the boy's face. Harry sighed lightly and shook his head.

Turning his attention back to the terrain ahead, Harry assumed the next set of foreign phrases was aimed towards him as well—he looked to the placement of his feet and didn't respond. It wasn't until the holy man said, in what was clearly English despite the accent of his voice, "Suleiman asks why you are chained," that Harry realized the boy had prevailed upon his mentor to translate.

Harry looked up from his feet once again, meeting the eyes of the dark-skinned holy man. Though the man didn't seem to be as accepting of Harry as the child—Suleiman, Harry corrected himself—seemed to be, he did not look at Harry with any particular anger. Harry had seen that sort of look before; it was the almost pitying expression of one confident in their faith, looking upon someone who refused to repent for their sins and would suffer accordingly. Had it been just a little more condescending, Harry would have bristled in response. As it was, Harry merely raised an eyebrow and answered, "Tell him they're a precaution. The others don't trust me."

…

It was the children who saw them first. They called out, three young voices raised in excitement, to Imam. The holy man, in seeing them himself, called out a brief bit of praise to his observant apprentices before broadcasting the information to the rest of the group. "Trees!" he called, taking care to speak in English rather than his native tongue.

Harry, walking just in front of the holy man once again, looked up at the cessation of the silence. "And trees mean water," he added, in a volume meant solely for his own ears. A smile caught his face for the first time since he had woken on the planet—sure his luck was beginning to look up, Harry turned towards the hill on which the trees were present and began picking his slow, steady way towards them.

Fry and Johns, who had been watching the far off horizon warily, doubled back to lead the way up the incline. Fry, as she did so, took care to stand half a step behind Johns, who had the gun—Paris' weapons had been useless, as things turned out, and so she was still unarmed. Staying behind Johns was the easiest way to ensure her safety, plus Johns had the experience of tracking Riddick, and so really ought to go first. Unused to the ins and outs of the politics of leadership, Fry didn't consider that half step as something that would make Johns appear stronger, more in control, more able to lead the group. Johns, even as his hands lingered near the open holster of his gun, thought of all those things.

Only Shazza, who walked in the middle of the group, had any doubts about the trees they were heading towards. The bleached looking protrusions ahead looked too stiff to be living wood. Maybe she was wrong—maybe an entirely different sort of tree grew on this planet, one she'd never come across before—but even as she crested the hill, Shazza was willing to bet that even if it was wood ahead, it would be petrified. She didn't think the branching chunks of white were part of anything living.

She was right. What they found was no forest: at the foot of the hill, the skeletons of at least a dozen giant animals rested, bones rising high in the air. Time or predators had picked the bones dry of any flesh. Grouped together, the animals had fallen prey to some sort of unexplainable end, leaving behind no explanations of their demise.

As if drawn towards the fallen creatures, the group found themselves shifting forwards, gravitating down the hill without voicing any wish to do so. Speaking of what could have killed the animals, they stepped through the arcs of fallen ribcages. _And though I walk through the shadow of the valley of death, I will fear no evil._

Only Harry, who lagged behind the group, thought of the possibility of predators remaining nearby. He'd seen the hack marks left on some of the bones, same as everyone else. Those animals hadn't just dropped dead—they'd been helped along by something with vicious claws, and probably the teeth to go with them. Unarmed, Harry hesitated a moment, wishing for his sword and the freedom of movement to wield it. The knowledge that predators strong enough to bring down creatures that large would have to be pretty large themselves was the only thing that calmed Harry's nerves—something like that, he would be able to see coming from some way off. Cautiously, he followed after the rest, slipping between the bones of the fallen.

He had not counted on a smaller predator, more human sized, lurking in their midst. In the boneyard, Riddick added the last final edge to a shiv of bone and listened for the movements of the survivors.

…

Riddick liked this place. He didn't figure he'd like whatever had made it—animals like that didn't go down easy, meaning something fucking huge had chewed on them awhile—but he liked the place itself. Skeletons had plenty of hiding spots. One push up and there was a crevice big enough to fit a body in—good way to see Johns look like an idiot, searching for someone just over his head. Then an easy slip down, and he was moving, away from Johns, towards the others. Riddick wasn't on the hunt—if he started something like that, they'd all be in for a surprise. Just scouting, testing himself. How close could he get to them before they'd see him?

The holy man was a sheep with little tag-along lambs. Not one had any sense—too vulnerable to be much fun. Riddick slipped in and out of the shadows for five, maybe ten minutes, trailing them, ducking close enough to breathe along the back of their necks. Then he left them. Too easy. The man had his eyes too fixed on God to see his surroundings, and was training up the kids to do the same. Going after them would be boring.

Prospector, though, she was a little more fun. Twitchy, almost neurotic. Half the time she'd spin round and look at where he'd been moments before—other half she was jumping at nothing. Riddick figured she might be decent if she'd calm down. She heard him, little movements he made. Just didn't deal with them too well. Seemed to be equally scared of Riddick and her own shadow, which made things less amusing after a while. Next.

Johns. Stalking Johns was an art form. Took skill, precision, way too much caution. Riddick did it for a while anyway—dogging the steps of his former captor, careful to stay hidden, imagining sinking his shiv into Johns' throat. He switched targets when Johns found the pretty blonde. The captain, apparently. She leaned back against the bones, tempting Riddick with her openness. He almost picked the blonde to take a souvenir from—that blonde hair, close enough to cut, unguarded, proof that he could've gotten her throat and she never would've seen him coming—but then she and Johns started a care-and-share. Fun as it might've been to target someone Johns meant to fuck, only idiots confided in monsters like Johns. The blonde spilled her deep dark secrets—_I nearly killed you all, the navigator was the only person who kept you alive, the only person on that ship I meant to save was myself. _Riddick approved of her self-preservation, but not of her. Too bad. Maybe the prospector would do after all.

Then he heard it. A little ways away—metal clinking on metal. Riddick knew that sound: handcuffs. Someone was chained?

So he found the noise. Dark-haired man came with it. Riddick watched, following after. Where the hell had he come from? Riddick had seen the passengers. This guy hadn't been one of them. Five eight, maybe five nine, wiry, wearing a useless belt wrapped twice and some sort of boots—looked like snake skin, almost. Riddick would've remembered him. He stood out. Man walked wary, too. Like the prospector, but not afraid. Just careful.

Riddick grinned and gripped his shiv. This one would do.

The handcuffs covered the sounds of Riddick's movements, not that Riddick made much sound to start with. Took a long time for Riddick to see his chance, though. Followed after him a while, having to dart behind bones suddenly—the man was good. As if he knew he was prey, the dark-haired man took care not to leave himself vulnerable. It took nearly half an hour for the man to rest—leaned up against one of the bones, closing his eyes, breathing out deeply. Riddick saw the opening and moved.

Carefully—wouldn't do to let the man hear him—Riddick snuck up behind. Shiv ready, bone edge tilted. The mess of black hair shifted as the man relaxed further. Riddick reached out—

—And the black-haired man spun round, teeth bared in a snarl, shiv barely missing the skin of his throat. Looked up to Riddick's goggles with eyes that shone bright in Riddick's altered sight. The man's arms wrenched against the handcuffs, forcefully enough to make the metal groan in protest—Riddick liked that his first instinct was to fight. Man subsided when the metal held. So there they were, the two of them, eyes meeting, Riddick looking down and the man looking up, on the edge of something that promised to be _interesting._

(_Fight! _Riddick's animal side screamed. Ignored it—he was used to that instinct. What he didn't expect was an equally loud: _Prove yourself! _That one, he'd didn't know what to do with. Pushed it aside for now.)

"You're Riddick," the man said at last. His voice was accented and low. Riddick liked the sound of his name in that voice—vowels came out sounding different, name more smooth. First time in years someone had said his name without sounding scared or angry, too—just said it, like he was discussing the weather.

Riddick tilted his head. "Yeah," he drawled. He didn't miss the jerk of the man's arms; the handcuffs groaned again. As if just Riddick's voice had set the man on edge. Riddick liked that too.

There was silence. Riddick watched the man bite his lip—vulnerable gesture, compared to the tensing arms. "I should call Johns," the man informed him.

"Maybe," Riddick answered. Shrugged. The movement made the tip of the shiv just brush the man's neck, not deep enough to cut. Dark-haired man didn't flinch. Riddick grinned, teeth bared, and asked, "Plan to?"

Slowly, the man shook his head. "No," he said. Then smirked, all predator, fierce if not frightening. "The only person Johns hates here more than me is you. Would be a pity to have you locked up when you being free irritates him so much."

Riddick reached forward, shifting the shiv. The man stilled, arms pulling at the cuffs again, but didn't move beyond that. Cornered, he looked to Riddick with bright, challenging eyes.

Something in Riddick half purred. Answering the challenge, he caught a strand of black hair in one hand and pressed the shiv to it. The snick when it cut free sounded like a claim. _Mine. _Riddick lifted the hair to his nose, breathed in, watching the man's eyes. Cinnamon, static electricity, sweat—distinctive smells in a strange combination. Riddick would remember them. "Take care, lil' mongoose," he told the dark-haired man—added in the 'little' just to watch him bristle. "Nobody kills you but me, get it?"

Then Riddick slipped away, heaving himself up onto one of the bones and weaving out of sight on the skeleton above.

(He didn't move too fast to hear the response, though. "Mongoose?" black-haired man said, sounding affronted. Talked at a volume like he knew Riddick could hear. Maybe he did know. "Does that make you a viper?"

Riddick grinned as he left. This would be _fun._)

**As ever, thanks to everyone who reviewed. Last chapter had very few review responses, which I suppose I deserved for running late and skipping review replies. This chapter I went back and replied to all the reviews for both chapter three and chapter four, so I'm back up to my norm. The only reviewers I didn't reply to were those who reviewed anonymously, or who have the PM feature disabled-and please know, all of you, that I loved your reviews too. :) Thanks also to all those who alerted or favorited this story. If you've the time, drop me a review—your feedback makes my day. **

**Next chapter: Harry and the rest find the settlement, and the planet's sole inhabitants make an appearance. Be prepared for serious deviation from movie canon from this point forward. :)**


	6. Chapter 6

**Author's note: I'm proud to say that Lares has now broken a hundred reviews. Thank you so, so much, dear readers, for your powerfully positive response to last chapter. Here, as promised, is chapter six, right on time—please enjoy. :)**

Unlike Riddick, Harry knew precisely what had just happened.

He stood awhile after Riddick had gone, staring absentmindedly in the direction the larger man had run. Harry had no doubt that his expression was blank, his gaze distant—he wasn't so much looking at any one thing as thinking very hard about a number of things at once. By contrast, Harry's shackled hands had clenched the skeletal rib his back was pressed against, grip so tight that his knuckles had gone absolutely white; that, though, Harry did not notice, absorbed as he was in his thoughts.

"Prove yourself," he commanded, though there was no one there to obey. His head slumped back to rest against the bone, and he sighed loudly. "Bloody hell. Fate has to hate me. There's no other reason that this would happen now."

Harry tilted his head back and closed his eyes, letting the blue light of the sun play across his eyelids. In a foreign place, his hands bound and his future uncertain, Harry's survival instinct had been largely buried in layers of doubt until that point. Now it was very much awake, and insistent upon reminding Harry that fraternizing with Riddick was unlikely to have him well-liked by the survivors, that the chains binding his wrists were unlikely to increase his chances of survival, and that allowing Johns to control him for much longer was unlikely to be good for Harry in the long term. No matter what else he felt about Riddick—those feelings being healthy doses of apprehension and fear, a slightly unhealthy amount of anticipation and a sharp, instinctive sort of pride, and an extremely unhealthy hint of possessiveness—he was at the very least grateful to the man. For the first time since he'd woken in that pitch black cryo-pod, Harry truly _felt _awake, and ready to look after himself again.

"Mongoose and viper," he said to the air, sounding as though he was turning the words over on his tongue to get a feel for them. His brain called up unwanted images of the coiled tension in Riddick's muscles, the smooth flow of his movements, the obvious tendency Riddick showed to track by scent. "It fits him," he admitted idly, only half thinking of what he was saying. "I don't think I'm so much of a mongoose as he is a viper." Still, Harry did owe Riddick, in a sense; accepting the nickname would be his repayment, even if Riddick never saw it as such. "I always did have a way with snakes," he went on, only stopping to listen to himself moments later, at which point he snorted in amusement and shook his head.

Falling silent at last, Harry watched blue light shine across his eyelids and planned.

…

They found the settlement after an hour's walk away from the boneyard, but it wasn't what they'd been expecting.

Or, at least, Shazza thought so. Settlements were supposed to have _people _in them, living breathing people going about their everyday lives. The buildings they found were structurally sound, civilized sort of places, very clearly made as a first camp for off-world settlers. Even if the people who had lived there were on the planet for something like surveying, which would make migrating a necessity of their jobs, Shazza could see that too much effort had been put into the making of these buildings for it to be simply a temporary post. Had they meant to abandon it, the camp would have been simpler, with more rudimentary architecture and fewer buildings. This place had never been meant to be empty.

It was, though. The group had all but run into the camp, calling out greetings in both the languages they were capable of speaking, and no one had answered. Walking around a little while proved there was no one to answer. The camp was empty, but not empty enough—if the people had been leaving on a long trip, more of their things would have been taken with them. Shazza walked past open doors into what had clearly been homes and saw dishes laying haphazardly out on tables, clothes strung up to dry, and boots left unlaced just inside entry halls. A place this big could have held thirty or forty people, if the space was shared efficiently. It should have held at least fifteen or twenty. Instead it was eerily empty.

During her explorations, Shazza did find one thing to brighten her spirits; a water pump near the center of the camp, which, despite being slightly technologically outdated and a little rusty, looked like it was just a few small adjustments short of working. The people of this camp had found and tapped an underground well, and Shazza's trained eyes led her to believe that it was a big one. Provided the purifiers on the pump didn't give out, there would be enough water to sustain the crash survivors for as long as three or four years; hopefully, they'd be off the planet long before the water let out. Their chances of survival were looking way up. Shazza thought this might even be a good base of operations—so long as they moved anything they might need from the ship, this settlement already came with its own water and housing, provided the people who'd built it wouldn't come back.

Shazza tried not to think of _why _the people wouldn't come back. She didn't really succeed. Between the skeletons of the valley, and the empty settlement, her nerves were really starting to knot themselves up. She had felt like something was watching her in the boneyard...

Pulling a wrench out of a compartment of her belt, Shazza shook her head. "Don't be stupid," she told herself, hoping the sound of her own voice would calm her. The others had run off to explore right away—if there was anything to find, any signs that the people of the settlement had been harmed, they would find them, and they would all get out before anything could happen. Meanwhile, Shazza was determined to help as best she could, by providing herself and the rest of them with a steady supply of water.

With a grim sort of perseverance, Shazza knelt down beside the pump and got to work.

…

Similarly, Harry had also set himself to a job only he could do—namely, figuring out exactly what the hell he'd heard as they approached the settlement.

He'd been walking at the front of the group at that point, one pace ahead of Johns and the blonde woman who seemed intent on being his shadow. Harry wasn't stupid; Johns hadn't put him there as a sign of confidence. No, the blue-eyed man had corralled him into that spot for one reason only: to draw fire. If the people of the camp were hostile, they'd go after the leader of the group first—Harry's sure strides and place at the head of the group would be enough to convince outsiders that he was the most likely target, if they didn't see his manacled wrists first. Harry knew that, but also knew that, in order to be released, he would have to gain enough support within the group that the threat of losing approval would overwhelm the possibility of him being a direct threat to Johns' health. If he could, through sheer popularity, threaten Johns' leadership within the group, Johns would be forced to let him go as a sign of mercy and good will in order to keep his place—doubtlessly, the man would try to find a legitimate excuse to kill him afterward, but at least Harry would be free and armed when the time came. The fact that it would come down to a popularity contest amused Harry, but he would do what he had to. In the interest of that, then, Harry couldn't deliberately stumble or fall for risk of looking pitiable and weak, which could prevent him from gaining the trust he needed. In order to survive in the long run, Harry would have to play at being Johns' human shield just this once—so be it.

Fortunately, there was no hostile presence in the settlement. As far as Harry could tell, there wasn't a human presence at all—the camp was silent as they approached, with none of the usual noises of human life. Harry had been listening intently as they stepped parallel to the nearest of the buildings, walking towards the center of the settlement, and had heard no laughter, or shouting, or conversation, or even the muffled footsteps and concealed breathing of people lying in wait for an ambush. Nothing to hear, except the sounds of the survivors crunching over sand and speaking to each other softly; Harry couldn't even use the phrase _a ghost town_, because, having spent so much time at Hogwarts, he knew for a fact that even ghosts made more noise. The town was just empty, and utterly soundless in a way that made the little hairs on the back of Harry's neck stand up.

Then the children, not to be held back any longer, had burst forward, sprinting ahead of Harry into the settlement and calling out what he could guess to be a greeting. He'd planned to call out for silence, but by that point the blonde woman had been doing the same in English, and Harry figured it was a lost cause. It wasn't like the others would listen to him anyway—without the shackles, he would've just been mysterious, but the handcuffs made him dangerous too. Harry made yet another mental note to pay Johns back for that eventually, and hoped the idiots hadn't drawn any unwanted attention to their straggling group.

It was then that he heard it. Under the noise of the shouting, for just the shortest second, Harry heard a low, reverberating hiss. A year of tracking a basilisk through pipes using its voice as guidance had made Harry sensitive to hissing ever since—he caught the sound at once and focused all of his attention on it, sincerely hoping it wouldn't be anything he could understand.

The hiss wasn't snake-speech, not really—some of the notes rang out all wrong, making nonsense syllables or starting words that never sharpened into anything understandable—but it seemed at the very least a bastardized dialect of Parseltongue. The noise lasted for only a few short moments before it trailed off into a higher-pitched, keening sort of shriek that would've been more at home in the mouth of a bat than a snake. Overall, it grated on Harry's ears, making his teeth clench as he struggled to comprehend any part of the alien sound, and then it was gone entirely. The only word Harry thought he had been able to make out was a low, plaintive wail of: _HUNGRY. _

Harry's blood went cold for an instant. He'd heard that word before and, in his experience, it never boded well. Even after the sound faded, leaving only the children and the blonde woman's shouts, Harry spent a moment in frozen memory of a cold, labyrinthine chamber below Hogwarts and the the dizzying burn of a basilisk's bite.

He spun to Johns as soon as it was over—much as he distrusted the bastard, he knew Johns was some sort of fighter, and that meant he would've been listening for anything out of place or dangerous. "Did you hear that?" Harry asked urgently, needing to know if he'd imagined the hiss or not.

He knew he'd made a mistake in asking Johns when the blue-eyed man merely treated him to a smirk. "Going crazy on us, Potter?" Johns asked in a condescending drawl. He shouldered past Harry to catch up with the blonde, nearly knocking Harry off balance in the process. Harry snarled inaudibly at the man's retreating back before calming his frustration with a few deep breaths.

The holy man and his apprentices had set off into the settlement immediately, trailing after Johns and the blonde woman, the children still running about and raising a ruckus. The brown-haired woman started off in the other direction, skirting what Harry guessed to be the residential section of the settlement, and disappeared from Harry's view as she turned a corner. Alone at last, Harry had taken one last look at his surroundings before setting off on a hunt.

A little part of Harry, the same that had been rapidly tiring of always being prey, was fiercely glad for a chance to turn the tables. Realistically, Harry knew that, with no idea of what he was hunting, and no freedom of movement with which to fight, he was unlikely to be doing much more than surveillance. He was still glad to see his sword make an appearance, of course—he stalked past one of the houses, following almost the same route as the brown-haired woman, and there it was, two feet of scabbard-sheathed weapon leaning casually against a white wall, as if it belonged there. Harry couldn't use it yet, or even lift it, but it was a welcome reminder of the fact that he could be dangerous if he cared to; a fact even he had been forgetting since he'd woken in the crash.

Despite that, though, Harry's hunt looked like it was going to be unsuccessful, simply because there was no further sign of whatever he was chasing. Harry was certain that he'd heard something at the entrance to the settlement. He zigzagged through the residential area, careful to keep clear of the brown-haired woman, and cut over to the more industrial section. Save for one squeak, which turned out to be the result of the blonde woman playing with a mobile that displayed the planet's revolutions around its main sun, Harry didn't hear so much as one suspicious noise. It was equally reassuring and disheartening.

Before he could finish his exploration of the industrial section, a slight hissing noise had Harry detouring back to the residential area. The noise was too pneumatic to be what Harry was looking for, but he was determined to check anyway. When the origins turned out to be the brown-haired woman repairing what looked like a water pump, Harry wasn't overly surprised.

He was surprised that she heard him coming—she whipped around at the slight sound of his footsteps, and looked at the narrow path between two housing units that he had approached on. Though his original plan had been to slip away and continue his search, Harry saw no need to waste an opportunity when he saw one. Relaxing his stance so that his posture would be as peaceful as he could make it, Harry stepped out of the shade and said, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to startle you."

The brown-haired woman looked up at him from her kneeling position on the ground, watching his face with an oddly sharp sort of gaze. Harry, who felt strangely bared in front of a look like that, didn't quite manage to force the uneasiness out of the smile he offered. _A hawk_, he thought, carefully meeting her eyes, and then almost laughed. Would he ever stop running across animals that considered a mongoose prey? After what felt like an alarmingly long moment, she looked down, returned her attention to the bolt she had been loosing. "No," she said, with the same sort of accent the darker-skinned man who'd been with Johns when Harry first woke had spoken in, "that's alright. This place makes me twitchy."

"I know what you mean," Harry offered. He took half a step forward, trying to be personable rather than threatening—when the dark-haired woman didn't seem bothered by it, he took another. "The silence gets too loud in a place like this."

He could see the woman blink in surprise, and was glad of it. If he could challenge the perception of him that Johns had set the group to believing, he'd be a hell of a lot closer to his freedom. "You're Potter, right?" the dark-haired woman asked, spinning the bolt until its placement seemed to meet her approval. She deftly opened one compartment along her leather belt, exchanging her wrench for some sort of screw driver.

Harry nodded, realized she couldn't see, and said, "Name's Harry Potter, yes. I'd prefer Harry, though."

The dark-haired woman rubbed one hand along her brow, brushing away the sweat that had accumulated under the sun, and started tinkering with another piece of the pump. "I'm Shazza," she informed him, focusing her high-powered gaze on the machinery. "Sharon Montgomery, really, but not even my husband's allowed to call me that." Realizing the woman—Shazza—wouldn't be standing anytime soon, Harry picked a semi-shaded wall of one of the buildings facing her and sat down with his back to it, careful not to catch his manacled hands in an uncomfortable position. There was a long moment of where Harry watched silently as Shazza worked, the only sound in the air being Shazza's off-key whistling while she worked. "Johns says you're dangerous," Shazza said abruptly, disrupting the near peace. She looked over one shoulder, meeting Harry's eyes again, and asked, flat-out, "Are you?"

Figuring honesty was called for, Harry shrugged as best as he could. "I can be."

Shazza hummed, as if he'd only confirmed something she'd known all along. "The real question is," she continued, "d'you mean to do something about it?"

Harry thought that over a moment, and shook his head. "Not unless provoked," he said, once again with complete honesty. "I don't like hurting people, but I will if they're trying to hurt me or somebody I care about first." Then, with a bit of the curiosity that had gotten him into trouble so many times over his lifetime, Harry asked, "Do you mean to do something about it?"

Shazza tapped the screwdriver twice against the pump, causing a dull metallic ring to fill the area. "Way I see it," she said, making a point of holding his gaze, "Johns doesn't trust you because you turned up somewhere he didn't expect you, and you can be dangerous, yeah?" Then she looked away, turning back to her repairs. "But really," Shazza said, inspecting a screw as she talked, "we're all in a place we didn't expect to be. Ah. Wrong driver." Opening her belt again, she exhanged her screwdriver for a slightly different one and smiled slightly when it slotted into the screw. "The dangerous part doesn't matter much if you don't plan to use it. On this planet, we're all strangers, and we're all stuck with each other. I don't see any reason to distrust you and not the others just 'cause you were in the wrong place at the wrong time. And singling you out might just make it harder for us all in the long run. If you pull a Riddick and start trying to kill people, that'll change, but for right now, you seem alright." Then, as if that somehow ended the discussion, Shazza returned to her whistling, punctuated only by the occasional opening of flaps along her belt.

Harry chuckled and closed his eyes. He never stopped being amazed by people. It made life more fun.

…

Until he was awoken by a shrill, piercing scream, Harry hadn't realized he was drifting off in the first place. Afterward, it was rather a moot point anyway.

His first instinct was to look to Shazza, but she was still kneeling before the pump. She looked to him, visibly confused and wary, a wrench clenched in her tense fingers—clearly she hadn't been the one screaming. Cocking his head, Harry ventured a guess of, "It came from the industrial section." Even as he said it, Harry knew he was right—the distance was what he would expect from a noise like that, and the direction of it had been pretty clear.

He levered himself upright—harder than it looked, with his arms handcuffed behind his back—by sheer force of will. Shazza, who still looked confused, asked, "Where?" She'd only toured the residential area, Harry remembered.

"I'll show you," he said, and he was moving even as the words left his mouth. He hoped she was quick, or else she'd probably be left behind. "C'mon."

As it turned out, Shazza was light enough on her feet that he needn't have concerned himself with her. She was up and after him before he'd even reached the first corner, and stuck close behind after that, taking care to follow in silence. Harry was grateful, considering it took all his concentration to remember the quickest path there and not get turned about.

By the time they reached the screamer at the far outskirts of the industrial section, the others had gathered too—the holy man and his apprentices stood some short ways away, and Johns was leaning against one wall and watching the scene. The noise had come from the blonde woman, who was currently pounding one fist against a sheet of metal.

"Those _idiots_," she yelled, though Harry couldn't tell who she was referring to. As soon as it became obvious that the scream had been from frustration rather than fear, he stopped, not short enough to make Shazza bump into him, but abruptly enough that she glared slightly as she passed. "Could they have made this _worse?"_

Shazza, who had come to rest just beside Harry, looked at the blonde in exasperation. "Fry," she said, and Harry made a note to thank her for finally giving the blonde woman a name, "you screamed like somebody was dying in front of you. Please give some warning before you use those pipes again, hey?"

Fry, who looked very much the picture of desperate frustration, spun almost violently to face Shazza—Harry couldn't help but notice that there were tears in her eyes, though she wasn't crying yet. "_That_," Fry said, emphatically gesturing behind her, "would have been our best chance of getting off this planet alive, if the idiots who lived in this settlement hadn't smashed it into the ground like the _morons _they must have been." Then Fry looked back at the metal, and said, voice softening, "They absolutely ruined it."

Harry took a moment to look behind her. Now that he thought about it, the blackened metallic shape did look identifiable if he looked at it long enough. The wings were very distinct, protruding as they were across the surrounding sand. The open hatch had stairs on the inside, now that he looked closer—the door to the ship. The cabin inside looked big enough that most, if not all of the survivors could have crammed inside. It was most definitely a ship.

"A short range craft like that coulda gotten us off this rock," Fry continued, now just sounding miserable. "I could've flown it too. That could've been our hope."

Could have been—a telling phrase, but also an appropriate one. Because, with the evidence of a painful crash and a marring fire afterward clearly visible on the ship, there was no doubt in Harry's mind that the ship was broken beyond any hope of repair.

**I told you not to expect things to go just like the movie, didn't I? *grins* **

**I know there was a significant lack of Riddick in this chapter—though that will happen sometimes, I'll usually try to make up for it with an abundance of his presence in the next chapter. :D**

**As ever, thanks to all those who reviewed last chapter—all forty something of you. :) That was the single largest positive reader response I've ever gotten. And I cheerfully replied to each of them, save for those who reviewed anonymously, or had the PM feature disabled—as ever, I loved all of your reviews too, and thank you for sending them. :) Thanks also to any who alerted or favorited Lares. If you've the time, leave a review—they clearly make my day. :D**

**Next chapter~ In which there is a death, way too many people take a swing at Riddick, and our boys get some quality bonding time.**


	7. Chapter 7

**(Very Long) Author's Note: So, uh, it has been a while, and I am so very sorry for that. This school year was horrendously busy, and gave me horrible writer's block. However, both school and the writer's block are now over, and with any luck I should be able to get back to updating at least once a week. :) Any readers who stuck with me despite the hiatus, thank you so much. For your patience, I'm rewarding you with a chapter that's twenty plus pages long. Also, it has the longest Harry/Riddick interactions to date, in both Harry's and Riddick's perspectives.**

**Disclaimer: Some lines of this chapter were taken directly from the movie. No scenes, however, are the same in their entirety. I just liked some lines too much to leave them out. **

**Last chapter (a refresher, for those who haven't read in a while): Harry, Shazza, Fry, Johns, and the Imam and his boys find the settlement in the desert. Shazza works to get them a water supply—meanwhile, Harry tries to track down the source of a bizarre snake-like hiss he heard when they entered the settlement. Shazza and Harry talk, and form something like the beginnings of a friendship, only to be disturbed by a scream. They find out that Fry was the one screaming, in response to having found the transport ship wrecked, apparently beyond repair, leaving them trapped on the planet.**

**One reviewer (Fruitful Action) asked me a very long time ago if I would be willing to write from other character's perspectives. This chapter includes two new perspectives. If you especially like or dislike either of the new perspectives, tell me in a review, and I'll decide whether or not to write them again in the future.**

**That's it. I hope you enjoy, my lovely readers. :)**

Panicking was easy, and panic cheap. Carolyn Fry hated having to admit that, in moments of stress, she almost always did just that—panic. At least, she had recently. In the simulators of early flight school, Carolyn had always been able to handle emergency situations well. Hell, even her first few piloting jobs had gone off without a hitch, and she'd even been commended by her boss for neat, calm flying. But the moment a job went wrong, and the pressure was on, Carolyn had felt all that calm slipping right away. Simulated crashes were distant, imagined things because you always knew you could survive them. Carolyn, watching the ground of a new planet actually come at her ship in real time, had fucked up, she could admit that—she'd panicked, and lost Owens. Up there, breaking atmo all too fast, it had been too easy to pull those switches; it wasn't like she knew anyone, wasn't like she cared about the passengers, and God, she was going to die otherwise, wasn't she? It wasn't until afterward, when she looked the passengers in the eyes and learned their names, that she realized only Owens' sacrifice had stopped her from becoming a murderer. And she'd promised herself quietly as she watched Owens die a gasping death that she would never panic like that again. She _wouldn't._

Except she had. Somehow the ruins of the rescue ship had set her right off again, until she was a screaming, whining thing that was terrified only for herself. Somehow knowing that _she_, not the others, might be trapped on this planet indefinitely, had made her forget everything flight school had taught her. _Crashes aren't always as bad as they seem, Carolyn. Always check the system computers before you declare a ship useless, Carolyn. Never say something is beyond repair until you're sure of it, Carolyn. _

Once again, Carolyn Fry had fucked up.

She hesitated just inside the burnt hatch of the ship, one hand resting on the unblemished metal of the interior, and tried to talk herself into going outside. Was there a good way to word this? _So, um, it looks like things aren't as bad as I thought—sorry for crippling morale and all that, just a mistake, I'm sure you understand. _As if she hadn't told them all that what could have been their only hope for getting off the planet was ruined—as if she would have even thought to double check inside if the prisoner, Potter, hadn't looked at her with those big green eyes and asked, "Are you sure?" Carolyn was ashamed to admit she'd only looked inside to prove Potter wrong—her pride was on the line, and nothing more. Not like it would've been a good idea to find salvageable parts inside the ship anyway, or like there could have been emergency rations stored inside that they could put to use, or like as a pilot, Carolyn should've known to check anyway, damn it. Stupid, stupid, stupid. And now she had to swallow her pride and go out there. She tapped one toe against the floor of the ship and tried to tell herself she wasn't acting like a child afraid to be scolded.

"Fry," a voice came from outside the ship. Potter, she recognized, and felt her shoulders slump. "We can see your feet, by the way. Whatever you have to tell us, just...come out and get it over with."

So she did. She wasn't going to panic again, not over something this stupid. Carolyn was pretty sure she even managed to pass off her initial wince at seeing the expressions of the others as a brief pain from her eyes readjusting to the sunlight—it was dark in the ship, after all, and they had no reason to suspect otherwise. Not yet.

"So?" Shazza asked, sounding tired and exasperated and hopeless all at once. Her posture didn't look scared, though; she stood tall and solid, unmoved by the stress. There was a woman who wouldn't fall apart under pressure, and Carolyn would be lying to say she didn't hate the dark-haired woman a little for it.

Carolyn opened her mouth, then closed it. Shazza's dark eyes were drilling into her; she couldn't admit a fault under that gaze, or the other woman would take her apart for it. Instead she looked at Potter. Somehow talking to him felt easier, like she was just admitting a mistake she'd made privately, between the two of them, and the rest of the survivors weren't involved at all. Maybe it was because he was a prisoner, and Carolyn felt safe from him, or maybe it was because he was looking at her like a man who'd seen too much to judge her now. Whatever the cause, the words unstuck in Carolyn's throat. "It's possible," she said, "that I could repair the ship. Just _possible—_"

Her next words were lost in three childish whoops of joy, and Imam's soft prayer to God. Right. There were children here—she'd made three kids lose all their hope. Kids. Carolyn felt almost nauseous under the weight of that; she'd always prided herself on being good with kids, too. Well, there went another bit of herself that Carolyn had previously been so sure of. Maybe it was time for a little self-reevaluation?

Then Johns was talking, and he, unlike the kids, was not joyous. "How the fuck did you make that mistake, _Captain?_" _I know you fucked up_, he was saying without words. _I know every time you fuck up on this planet, and don't forget it. _Carolyn just kept looking at Potter's green eyes and tried to steady herself against the unchanging brightness of them. "You told us it was ruined. Destroyed, actually. Fuck, you made us think—"

"There are kids here," Potter snapped, breaking eye contact with her to glare down Johns. Carolyn knew just from Potter's expression that things had turned into a staring contest with Johns—Potter seemed to win, if the way Johns fell silent was any indication. Then Potter was looking at her again, and even if that metallic sound was Johns kicking a piece of rubble like Carolyn thought it was, it didn't occur to her to turn around. "So, Fry," Potter said, voice not quite gentle, but almost—Carolyn had to think for a second to find the word she wanted—lenient. As if he was pardoning her for her stupidity. Carolyn was horrified on principle to find that it actually made her feel better. "What happened?"

She took a deep breath, remembered that these people—most of these people, anyway, even if Johns seemed to be excluded at the moment—respected her, and didn't look at her shoes. "I said the ship was ruined because of the fire," Carolyn said. "Because if something in the engine lit, it would've burned the ship just like that, and made the whole ship useless." Her fingers clenched to nervous fists, which she only realized after they'd moved and it was too late to stop the gesture. "But I was wrong." Somehow saying it helped. Damn it all, Carolyn was a strong woman, not a scared little girl. She'd fucked up, and now she was admitting it, and that was all anybody could ask of her. Maybe she didn't quite look away from Potter, but she wasn't exactly hiding behind him either. "It looks like the crash started sparks on contact that burned the ship from the outside. So the hull isn't the prettiest thing I've seen in a while, but the engine and the inside still look intact."

"And you can fix it?" Shazza asked.

"If I've got enough scrap metal to piece the hull back together, and the batteries to run the ship," Carolyn added, because it was entirely possible she might not have even that much, "and the navigation system isn't completely screwed up, then yeah, I can fix it."

"The batteries from our ship," Imam put in, "they will work, no?"

Carolyn nodded. "The metal from our hull ought to be thick enough too, if we can peel it off in chunks. We'll need welding tools—"

"Have 'em," Shazza added in.

"—and some damn impressive luck," Carolyn finished, as if she hadn't been interrupted. "Not to mention at least a few weeks. But if we don't starve first, we could just get off this rock."

Carolyn Fry, bringer of hope. She liked seeing the expressions around her; she'd given them that enthusiasm. Now that they had a mission—now that everyone had a purpose—they weren't just lost anymore. They had a chance, and that made all the difference. Even Carolyn felt optimistic. Someday they might be able to get home, and wasn't that enough?

"I vote we set up camp here," Potter said. "There's already housing, and Shazza's this close to getting us drinkable water."

"Potter," Johns started, and Carolyn was reminded of the fact that Potter was, after all, their prisoner. It was strange that she'd forgotten, even for a moment. Shazza, though, cut the blue-eyed man off with:

"He's right. If we move everything over from the crash site, we could live here pretty comfortably—just 'til we starve, of course, but other than food, this place has everything we need."

"Dragging everything across the sand will take time," Imam pointed out, though Carolyn wasn't sure if he was saying it to support Johns' opposition to the idea or merely to point out a fact.

Shazza grinned. "Look at that old sandcat, there," she said, pointing; Carolyn looked where she indicated and noticed some sort of over-sand cart. "That'll hold plenty of cargo and all of us. Looks solar, too, so batteries aren't gonna be a problem given we don't seem to have a night here. Gimme a minute to get it up and running, and we oughta be good to go."

Just like that, they had a plan—Carolyn found she liked it.

...

Paris knew he was a coward. Actually, it was something he took pride in.

He'd had a grandmother—batty old woman, really, by the time he was of any age to remember her—who'd moved in with his mother when he was nine. His father had been long gone by that point; he'd been a coward too, and fatherhood had scared him off after the fourth son was born, which really just proved to Paris that cowardice was genetic to begin with. Taking care of four sons wasn't easy, or inexpensive, as Paris' mother had informed him all too many times—Paris remembered his mother working almost nonstop, in multiple, exhaustive jobs that left her too tired to do much of anything once she got home for the day. With all three of Paris' older brothers off at work during the summers, that had left only Paris to look after his grandmother.

The woman had been a nutter. There was no doubting that; half of what came out of the old hag's mouth was nothing less than absolute rubbish. Paris had spent the better part of his adolescence listening to one sort of crazy theory or another voiced in his grandmother's dulcet tones. Most of it had gone in one ear and out the other, lost forever to the ages—that much, Paris could say without any remorse. But one thing she'd said had stuck with him across time and space. He remembered it distinctly, because it had happened the day his eldest brother, Cairo, had been moving in to the dorms at the Police Academy, and he'd been left all day with the barmy old bat; when she'd insisted he sit down and listen to her, Paris had treated the request with a reluctant sort of acceptance.

"Paris," she'd told him, showing an odd bit of lucidity in even knowing his name, "listen to me, boy. Listen well. Your brother's off to be a good little cadet, to learn to police our streets and protect the good folk of our little world, and your other brothers after him, no doubt."

"Yes, gramma," he'd said, bored already. This had been a favorite topic of his mother's too, as he recalled—he'd spent the better part of a month being endlessly lectured on the nobility of his brother's choice of career. "Let me guess. 'Be a good citizen and follow in their exalted footsteps'?" Easier said than done, as Paris had well known. His brothers had been strapping, athletic young men, who looked as if they could have stepped off the recruitment posters for the Police Acad—Paris had always been mousy, lanky and largely unbalanced, more given to dusty books than feats of strength.

Instead his grandmother had snorted. "Are you crazy, boy? They give you a gun and you'll shoot yourself in the foot with it." Paris had blinked in surprise, insincere protest already on his lips, but she'd gone right on. "Silence your pride and listen. Your brothers are gonna police our streets, guns in hand, and take down criminals and murderers you'd be afraid to sneeze at. Maybe the first year won't kill them—hell, maybe ten years won't. But they'll walk awful close to death, boy, and they'll do it often." She leaned forward, arthritic hands gripping at Paris' thin, youthful fingers with a surprising amount of strength. "You call on death often enough, he gets to know your name—first and last, all nice and personal. He gets to know where you live, too. Soon enough he'll follow along just behind you, breathing down your neck. Maybe ten years won't kill 'em, but they'll start to feel death close behind, boy, and you remember that. And their time will come sooner than most, because death likes to keep his friends close." For a long minute, she'd watched Paris with a shadowed gaze that made him too scared to speak—he'd almost stopped breathing entirely by the time she said, absentmindedly, "Now where on all the planets did I leave those damned glasses of mine? London, fetch them for me?"

Nothing else the woman had ever said had made much of an impact on Paris—but that single conversation had stuck with him since, and he'd been no more than twelve at the time. When push came to shove, Paris had put a quick end to the family profession by becoming an antiquities dealer. His mother and brothers had hardly spoken to him after, but that was alright—he'd outlived all of them, and that certainly said something.

So, stranded on the foreign, desert planet that was becoming his worst nightmare, Paris elected to take watch instead of helping the prospector dig a grave. So, with something sharp to his throat and a voice in his ear, Paris had been terrified. So what? Jack, the infernal child, based his bravery on hero worship of people of dubious moral quality—when the child realized his idol was little more than a raving sociopath, they'd see where that bravery got him. And if Zeke decided to give some rest to the dead, so be it—Paris didn't believe there was such a thing as a restful afterlife. There was only staying as far away from death as possible until the very end of things; a life of cowardice was a life of peace, and a longer life besides.

Let Zeke dig the graves, disturbing the ground with his presence, moving corpses better left where they were. Paris, resting atop the ship and at a safe distance from the entire proceedings, would give death no reason to shadow his steps.

…

Sitting in the back of the sandcat as it raced over dunes, Harry looked up at the sky as the color of its light shifted gradually from blue to orange, and wondered what the hell he was doing.

The plan was simple: talk his way out of the handcuffs, help repair the ship when and where possible, get off the planet as soon as such an option becomes available. Straightforward, basic, and plausibly manageable, it was Harry's favorite sort of plan. Of course, it was the sort of plan that would, inevitably, fail somewhere, despite Harry's best intentions. There were three things, by Harry's reckoning, that might upset the plan—Riddick, the first, he'd find a way to deal with, and Johns, the second, he'd find a way to kill eventually. It was the third thing that proved more problematic.

The camp they'd discovered, with the wreckage of the rescue ship and the semi-functional water pump, was a good choice for a home base for the survivors. It came with shelters already made, enough space that they could all live in one location without stepping on each others' toes, and, with Shazza's help, a readily available source of water. Harry could think of no better place to live until they either got off this rock or all died of starvation. And there, at last, was the catch—the fact that without any food, the survivors couldn't hope to go on surviving for more than two weeks or so.

Was it even slightly possible that while they were all starving to death, no one would take notice of the fact that Harry, alone, was not dying? Oh, he would get to be as emaciated as the rest, there was no question of that, and he would suffer all the symptoms of starvation as the others did, but when it came down to the very last, Harry would not die. If enough died before him that his continuing life became suspicious, what would the others do to him? And, if they didn't harm him, how would he get off this planet alone, after they all had gone? Then, of course, there was the issue of Riddick, which tangled up everything else and made even more of a mess of things than they already had been.

Harry remembered Hermione's voice ever so fleetingly, spoken as clearly as if she had been sitting beside him. Over the sound of the sandcat's engine and the shifting of sand, he heard in memory, "_It isn't anything more than a precaution, Harry, and we'll undo it as soon as everything calms down a little. You know as well as I do that it isn't really immortality."_

He truly couldn't help but to snort in response—not really immortality. Had Harry remembered the reversing rites, that could have been true, but he'd trusted Hermione's memory at the time and not bothered himself. The only other option for mortality was one Harry wasn't entirely sure he wanted to take. But it wasn't _really _immortality, of course.

Looking up at the strange mixing of blue-orange sky above, Harry tried to ignore the feeling of being watched he'd had ever since they left the settlement—and tried to ignore the fact that he found it almost comforting to know Riddick was following just out of sight. For now, he simply listening to the roar of the sandcat's engine and tried to plan for the impossible.

…

Shazza, too, knew Riddick was following them.

Oh, she hadn't known it at first, not for sure. Other than a vague feeling in the boneyard, she'd had no concrete proof that the murderer was nearby, and feelings in foreign places were easy to put down to nerves or stress. By the time they'd reached the settlement, she'd stopped feeling watched anyway, and had put it mostly behind her.

But when the same feeling returned as she piloted the sandcat over dunes, learning how the machine moved and shielding her eyes from the glare of the sun they were driving into, she gave it a little more credence. She wasn't alone, anymore—surrounded by the other survivors, and with her nerves more settled than they'd been since the landing, Shazza couldn't put the feeling down just to imagination any longer.

Still, though, she wasn't entirely certain until they reached the crashed cargo ship and came to a stop. Fry and Johns were the first to jump off, almost before the engine had stopped moving, and they went straight off towards the engine room of the ship, talking about batteries and energy capacity as they did. The Imam's boys shot off too, but they scampered in the other direction, in search of the former passenger compartment; Shazza knew they were probably looking for any emergency rations that might have been in the compartment, though she didn't expect them to find any. The holy man himself stepped off the sandcat more slowly, and made his way towards the tarp erected about thirty meters from the crash—from the way the tip of a shovel appeared over the dip of the land from time to time, Shazza was willing to bet he'd gone to consecrate the grave her husband was digging for the bodies of the passengers who hadn't survived the wreck. After a minute or two, the only people left in the sandcat were Shazza, who stayed a moment to clean dust off the sandcat's solar charger and check the machine more thoroughly, and Harry.

When Shazza looked up at last, satisfied that the sandcat was in working order and would likely stay that way, she realized that the chained man still had not moved. He'd been standing at the back of the cart, leaned against the metal post there so as not to tip over, and he was still there, some minutes after the sandcat had come to a stop. Shazza almost opened her mouth to ask if anything was wrong, but noticed his expression before she did and stayed quiet.

Shazza had felt fairly certain that they were being watched, but Harry's expression told her that he knew it for a fact. Head cocked gently to one side, a look of concentration on his face and his eyes shifting ever so slightly on around one area of raised stone structures a little ways back towards the direction they'd come from, Harry looked like he _knew _beyond a shadow of a doubt exactly where Riddick was hiding. In that moment, Shazza didn't doubt that it was the truth.

So, Shazza did what she thought was best. "Harry?" she asked, and watched him startle out of whatever concentrated state he'd been in. When he met her eyes, she continued, "I'm going to take a look around, maybe start cutting metal off the hull. You should come, if you'd like to be helpful."

Harry steadied himself against the post and hopped down, managing to catch his balance without using his hands despite the sand shifting under his feet. He turned back to her when he was steady, and told her, "I wouldn't know what to do with a blowtorch if it hit me across the face."

Looking down at him, Shazza thought of the help it would be to have a man who'd confessed to being dangerous when protecting those he cared for, and who could evidently track Riddick at great distances, nearby. Besides, when he'd fallen asleep before, he'd snored gently; it was kind of endearing, and Shazza had considered keeping him around even then.

She hopped down beside him, and pointed towards the most likely section of hull. "You'll learn."

…

Funny thing was, Riddick never needed to touch 'em to make the people down at the ship scared to death.

He watched them and knew that. They were terrified of him—sentry twitching at his own shadow, the blonde always looking over her shoulder, Johns' hand never far from his gun. Riddick circled the ship, never too close, just watching. Watching them all startle at the sound of his name, at the sound of sand shifting, at anything. All he'd done was make an escape and keep close, and they were pissing their pants like he was the monster they'd thought lived in their closet when they were kids. It was funny. Pathetic, but funny.

His mongoose, though, that was different. Dark-haired man had hidden himself away inside the ship with the prospector, letting Riddick know where he was with the sound of a blowtorch but never coming into sight. Riddick knew, though. His mongoose wouldn't be scared. Not of Riddick. Whatever else he was afraid of, the dark-haired man had looked at Riddick and bared his teeth like another predator, not prey. It'd been a long time since Riddick had hunted somebody worthwhile—made things more interesting when they fought back.

Circling, watchful, Riddick saw the man coming long before the sentry did. Bloodied but alive, another survivor walking out of the dunes, right into a ship of people jumping at shadows. When the mousy man on watch heard and went stiff, Riddick knew things could go very wrong. Sentry slipped away from his post, into the ship below, and Riddick took his place. Settled in quietly, waited.

And they put on a hell of a show. Prospector went Amazon, wide-eyed and swinging a scythe—nearly took the man's head off before a kid screamed her to a stop. Then the prospector's lover finished what she started, three bad shots ending a life. The guilt and shock of the aftermath were showy, too; prospector covered in blood and trembling, her lover with his head in his hands, sentry shaking like he was caught in a wind.

Riddick smelled it just before his mongoose stepped out of the ship. Sweat, cinnamon, static electricity, and then the dark-haired man was pressing his shoulder gently into the prospector's, was turning the kid back inside and whispering comfort. Putting them back together again. He talked to the prospector until the blank look in her eyes went, and she turned back the way she'd come. Talked to her lover until the man's spine went straight again, and he clapped a hand on the black-haired man's shoulder and walked back to the grave. The sentry, shaking, went back to the ship at a few words.

Alone, then, his mongoose looked up, meeting his eyes, like he'd known Riddick was there all along. Looking just like he'd looked from the back of the cart, following Riddick with his eyes when Riddick should've been too far to follow. His mongoose frowned in disapproval, like this was Riddick's fault. Raised one eyebrow, looked over Riddick's position, mouthed the words, "Getting cocky," then turned around and went back inside the ship.

Sentry had left a bottle of wine behind when he fled. Riddick raised it to his mongoose's retreating back and smirked.

...

Harry's day had been going badly enough _before _he heard yet another set of gunshots going off—after that, the day descended straight into being called abysmal.

He'd been inside the ship with Shazza and the kid, whose name he'd learned was Jack, when the gunshots went off. It had been touch and go for a minute after the other survivor's death, but Harry had managed to pretty much talk everyone around and get them back to what they'd been doing. It was horrible that an innocent had been killed, yes, and Harry would have given them all the time they needed to mourn that loss in any other circumstances, but the fact of the matter was that they didn't have time that day for grief or guilt. They were all of them trapped on an alien planet, and the longer they took to get off it the more likely they all were to starve; it was imperative that everyone finish up what they were doing and head back to the settlement to start the repairs. With that in mind, Harry had done what he could to get everybody working and productive again. He'd been through two wars, after all—he was used to talking civilians down in combat situations.

Shazza, at least, had taken what he'd said to heart. She was already back to shaving off the plated layers of metal they would need to fortify the outside of the transport ship, her hands steady and efficient despite the grim look in her eyes. In all honesty, Harry was starting to really like Shazza. The woman was almost endlessly useful, and determined to do the absolute best she could; Harry respected that a lot. She reminded him a little bit of Hermione, in that she was also one of the most competent women he'd ever met. The fact that she'd been kind to him so far despite Johns' mistrust and the handcuffs around his wrists was fairly endearing too.

Harry couldn't say Jack was in good shape, necessarily, but then he hadn't expected the kid to be. He didn't know Jack that well yet, admittedly, but he could already tell the kid talked big and couldn't always back it up. The boy talked like he admired Riddick, but then flinched away from death; Harry could tell from Jack's wide eyes and shaking hands that this was the first time the kid had ever seen anything die. Jack was probably about twelve at the oldest, and hadn't learned to cope with anything so traumatic as another human being being shot, and Harry really wished he hadn't had to learn today. Still, that said, Jack was holding together, which was a point in the kid's favor. He sat inside the ship with Harry and Shazza, eyes a little glazed and words coming a little too fast, but he didn't cry or scream, and he managed to give Shazza a hand, so Harry figured he'd be okay given enough time.

Personally, Harry knew he wasn't being very useful. With the handcuffs still tight around his wrists, and his arms still held behind his back, Harry couldn't exactly lift tools or carry the metal Shazza cut down. The cuffs were starting to wrench his shoulders pretty badly too, which made him even less helpful than he might have been. Rather than getting in the way, Harry had chosen to sit down and just talk quietly with Jack and Shazza, careful to keep his voice even and calm. He could see that steadying their frayed nerves a little, and figured that was the best he could do.

All his hard work to get them settled was ruined, however, the moment the gunshots rang through the air.

Shazza was the first to react. "Zeke!" she said, eyes very wide, and was bolting out of the compartment before Harry had even managed to lurch to his feet. She had the door to the cabin thrown open by the time Harry was upright, and was out into the sand beyond before Harry could call out for her to wait. Zeke was probably the one who had sent off the shots, but it could have been Johns, or even Riddick if he'd managed to get his hands on a gun, and Harry wasn't sure it was safe for Shazza outside just then. It was too late, though—Shazza was already gone, and considering that Harry was already a bit fond of her, it wasn't like he could just let her go out alone.

Jack had started after her, but him at least Harry could stop. "Kid, wait," he said, "stay here."

"Somebody could be hurt!" Jack said, but slowed, one hand on the doorframe.

"Yeah, and it could be you next, so wait here." Harry had already passed the kid, almost falling when his feet hit sand, and cursing Johns again for the handcuffs. Balancing was harder than it looked when you were trying to run with your hands behind your back, damn it. He didn't stay to see if Jack listened to him, but considering the kid didn't go sprinting past him a few seconds later, Harry figured it was a safe enough bet that he'd stayed.

Catching up with Shazza was hard given her head start, but Harry made his best attempt. She'd gone straight off towards the grave her husband had been digging, which meant veering around the edge of the ship and taking off towards the other side. A sharp turn on sand, Harry learned quickly, was not his friend, not without his hands to steady him. Still, he managed not to fall, and by virtue of having longer legs than Shazza managed to almost catch up with her on the open space between them and the grave.

As such, when the figure standing in front of the grave came into focus for Harry, he knew Shazza's keen eyes had already picked him up. Against the white sand and white stone-like spires of the horizon, the person standing ahead of them was pretty hard to miss. Harry hadn't seen the man for long, but the broad shoulders and the goggles over the man's eyes pretty much gave him away in a heartbeat. "Riddick," Harry panted out under his breath, wishing he had to air to sigh. Why wasn't he running? "C'mon, run, you idiot."

Then Harry saw the blood around a hole at the bottom of the grave, and beside him Shazza let out a low, pained sound. They both skidded to a stop for the barest moment, both staring down at the bloody ground now about three yards away. "Zeke!" Shazza said again, and it sounded like a cross between a sob and a scream, her voice catching on the name. She looked up at Riddick at that moment, and let out a wordless shriek, her hands clenching into fists at her side.

Riddick finally, finally ran in the moment after that. Harry already knew the other man had moved too late.

Shazza was after Riddick like a shot as soon as he ran, and Harry couldn't keep up even though he'd starting moving barely a second later. He didn't think he'd seen anyone move the way Shazza did then, as if all her fury at her husband's death had converted into speed, her body overcoming the limits of the thin air simply by virtue of anger. Riddick was fast—he should be, with all the muscle he'd built up—but he moved like somebody more used to doing the chasing than being chased, and that made all the difference.

If there was even the slightest chance that Riddick might've gotten away, it was gone the second Johns entered the picture. Harry wasn't close enough to see how it happened, but he did see the results: Riddick fell like he'd been hit in the legs, and then Johns was standing over him, a baton in his hand.

Harry wasn't quick enough to stop the first blow Johns landed, or the second; he wasn't even there to stop Shazza, who drew back her hand and swung like someone with very little practice in fighting but one hell of a motivation to make someone else hurt. "You son of a bitch," Shazza yelled, even as the blow fell, "tell me what you did to Zeke!"

Harry did reach her before she could hit Riddick again. For a moment, he was tempted to let her. He hadn't seen what happened, didn't know if Riddick had had any part in killing her husband, but if the murderer had then Shazza was well within her rights. Harry _would_ have let her, actually, if he hadn't looked down on Riddick at that moment.

He hadn't realized Johns had ripped off Riddick's goggles until he saw the bigger man on the ground, squinting up to try and see who was hitting him. It was the most vulnerable he'd ever seen Riddick. When Riddick was upright and free, there was no forgetting that the man was a predator, and one who enjoyed what he did—Riddick wouldn't let anyone forget, not with the way he moved, and not with the way he watched too carefully, like he was just waiting for the moment where someone wouldn't expect it when he came after them. It was different, though, when Riddick was on the ground, already trapped, not even able to see what was happening around him. He wasn't helpless—if Harry ever once thought of Riddick as being helpless, the man would probably kill him out of spite—but he was unprotected, and he was outnumbered. Harry hadn't entirely expected every one of his nerves to vibrate with the message of _protect/guard/mine_, but once they had he knew he couldn't let anyone hurt the man further.

"Shazza!" he called, wishing his arms were free so that he could just restrain her physically. Maybe she had a right to hit Riddick, especially if he'd killed her husband—and Harry needed to think that Riddick hadn't, that there was another reason for the blood—but Harry actually _could not _let her harm Riddick. It was that simple. "Shazza, stop." He pressed in close behind her, his side close against her back, hoping the contact would jar her out of her anger.

It did stop her from landing another blow, in that when she drew back her arm for the swing her elbow collided with Harry's chest. She'd drawn back hard, and the hit winded Harry a little, but it also caused Shazza to half turn around, blinking in surprise. Something about actually noticing there were other human beings around her seemed to cause a shift in Shazza; as Harry had thought, her frenzy had caused the world to narrow to just Riddick, and forcing that focus to dissipate seemed to remind her of why she had been so angry in the first place. "Zeke," she said, very softly, and this time the name was a sob. She shook once, hard, and lowered her head to Harry's shoulder.

Harry wasn't sure what he was supposed to do with that—comforting crying females had never been a strong point of Harry's—but it was still infinitely better than anyone touching Riddick. "I'm sorry," Harry said, and lowered his head so his chin rested atop her head, the best substitute he could make for a hug. "I'm so sorry."

"Just kill him," Shazza said into the curve of Harry's neck, and it was only the sorrow in her voice that kept the protective part of Harry from acting up. "Just somebody goddamn kill him. Zeke..."

Harry stared Riddick down over Shazza's head. Even half-blinded, Riddick had turned to face Harry. For once, the man actually wasn't smirking or smiling like a shark—his face was blank, like he realized exactly what he'd gotten himself into. "Idiot," Harry said, under his breath, hoping Riddick had enough sight left without his goggles to make out the shape of the word on Harry's lips.

"Jesus, somebody has to put you down," Johns said, and brought his baton down across Riddick's head. Riddick lost consciousness a second after the blow landed, and Harry couldn't look away as it happened.

The only thing that stopped Harry from launching himself at Johns was Shazza, who was not only depending on him for stability at the moment but also physically between him and Johns. As it was, Harry couldn't stop himself from jerking from the effort it took to stay still, and his handcuffs groaned as his arms tried to pull apart. He did manage to stop himself before he dislodged Shazza—he did not manage to keep a low, growling sort of sound from emerging from his throat. Johns noticed both the movement and the sound, and gave Harry a disapproving look, the baton still poised in his hand.

"_Don't _touch him," Harry said, his voice lower and rougher than even he had expected. He met Johns' gaze and did not look away until the other man lowered his weapon. With Johns standing down, the whole situation changed. Now that there was no need for Harry to protect Riddick—and he was going to need to get that instinct under control, he knew he couldn't afford to attack Johns, not if he wanted to get out of his handcuffs any time soon—it was just two men and one crying woman standing around an unconscious form. Two women, actually: Harry realized that Fry had arrived at some point during the commotion, and was hovering awkwardly behind Johns, unsure of where she should stand. Harry looked down at Riddick and asked, "What are you going to do with him?"

"He's getting locked up back on the ship," Johns said, and moved to lift Riddick, gesturing to Fry that she should help him, "and so are you. Hurry up."

…

Riddick woke up slow. Real slow—the kind that comes with head wounds. He remembered Johns waving a baton around, which would definitely cover the head wound. Johns might've cracked his skull, if he was anybody else. One more thing to kill Johns slowly for, when he got around to it.

He didn't open his eyes. There was warmth across the back of his neck—sunlight—and he'd already done blind today. Didn't feel the need for the splitting headache that would come with doing it again. Anything he needed to know about where he was he could smell out, anyway. He'd need to find his goggles eventually, but for now they didn't matter.

They'd put him in the ship—he was chained, which meant they had something to chain him to. From the feel, they'd chained his arms to opposite poles or walls, sat him down on a stool. His legs, though, they'd left free. Stupid of them. With his legs free, Riddick could still stand, could still kick. It wasn't much to work with—not enough to get him free—but it did mean he could do Johns some damage, if the bastard came to gloat. Might even be worth the consequences to see Johns squirm.

He smelled metal, sweat, dry air, sand, static electricity, cinnamon. He smiled. "Mongoose. Come here often?"

Heard a sound like fabric rustling, metal clinking—his mongoose shifting to face him, maybe. "Very funny, Riddick," he said, in the same accented voice Riddick remembered. "Maybe next time you can just stop in for a visit without getting yourself beaten half to death first."

"You were worried," Riddick said. Didn't ask—it wasn't a question, not with his mongoose sounding like that. "I got you to thank for keeping me alive?"

"Yeah," the dark-haired man said. "New rule, by the way. Nobody kills you but me."

"Cute," Riddick said, and laughed.

"You're an idiot," his mongoose said. Sounded so dry, so serious. "I thought I said something about not getting caught by Johns, didn't I?" Then, after a second, "Riddick. What the hell did you do to Zeke?"

"The dead man? Nothing," Riddick said. His mongoose snorted, shifted again. "That's the truth. You already know I'm a killer. Why would I lie?"

"I don't know," the other man said. "But there was blood in the grave, and you were standing over it with a shiv. That really doesn't look too good for you," a pause, and then, sarcastically, "Viper."

Riddick liked it. 'Viper' sounded almost as good in that accent as his name. "What about you?" he asked, and grinned. "Think I killed him?"

"No," his mongoose said, quick, like he'd been thinking about it. "Zeke's gun fired multiple times. I know Zeke wasn't a good shot, but at that close of a range, at least one of the bullets should have hit you if you were going after him. That, and I know you didn't have time to hide the body, but Shazza was in here earlier, and I know they haven't found it yet."

"Shazza?" Riddick asked.

"His wife. The one who hit you, actually." Riddick remembered her, come to think of it. She'd been blurry, but he'd definitely gotten hit by a woman. His mongoose had stopped her, calmed her down—he was good at that. She'd cried on the dark-haired man. Riddick remembered his mongoose not looking too happy about that, either.

"Oh. The prospector." Not that he cared, much. The prospector wasn't Johns or his mongoose—she didn't matter to him here. "So, you believe me. Why does it matter?" Riddick asked

"Maybe because the others do think you killed him, Riddick," the black-haired man said. "We're trapped on a desert planet here. If they leave you to die, you probably will." Which was true, but then Riddick knew something his mongoose didn't—the price on his head was much higher when he was alive. He knew Johns wasn't gonna let a bounty like that slip away. Riddick was going to live for as long as Johns could safely keep him that way. But his mongoose wasn't done talking. "The reason why I care, personally, is that if you didn't kill Zeke, something else on this planet did."

It was good to see his mongoose wasn't an idiot. "There's definitely something else, lil' mongoose. I heard the whispers."

The handcuffs clinked loudly at that—his mongoose had scrambled up to attention, like his words were important. "Whispers? Like a hissing that turned into a screech at the end?"

"Exactly," Riddick said. "You've heard 'em?"

"At the settlement," the other man confirmed. "I tried to track the sound down, but I only heard it once." More rustling fabric. "Riddick. If whatever it is that killed Zeke was what took down the animals in the boneyard, then things are going to go very wrong here."

"Mm," Riddick said. "If you're right, the others are fucked. But not us." Because Riddick really didn't plan to die, and the other man's life was _his. _He'd protect the dark-haired man until the day he killed him.

"What, we're going to ask the giant predators to please leave us alone, because we have each other's deaths reserved?" His mongoose snorted. "I'm not seeing it, Riddick. We're both chained up and unarmed."

"So we get free," Riddick said, "and we go hunting."

There was a pause. Then, "You know, for a murderer, you're strangely optimistic. I don't—"

"Quiet," Riddick said, and the other man stopped talking. "Footsteps," Riddick said, now that he could hear them clearly. "Across metal, coming closer."

"A couple of people have been through while you were unconscious," his mongoose said, voice soft, like he wasn't sure if Riddick still needed the silence. Oddly considerate of the other man, actually. "Shazza came through twice, and Johns was by for an explanation. I think he was disappointed that he didn't injure you more badly than he did."

"Bastard would be," Riddick agreed, and then could tell from the sound that somebody else was in the room with them.

"Potter," the voice said—female, self-assured. The blonde pilot, Riddick remembered. And, apparently, his mongoose's name was Potter. Riddick didn't think it suited. "Is he awake?"

"Ask him yourself," Riddick said, amused, and turned to face the sound of her voice.

"Fry," his mongoose greeted. "Why are you here?"

"I need to know what happened to the body," the blonde said. So his mongoose had heard right—they hadn't found the prospector's husband yet. Interesting. "Riddick?" A long moment, and then the blonde sighed. "Fine, don't talk to me. I just wanted to let you know that there's a debate going on right now, about whether or not we'll just leave you two to die."

Riddick paused, sat up straighter. He hadn't thought of that. Johns needed him for bounty, but not his mongoose. Johns would never leave him, but the blonde had said they'd both get left behind, and his mongoose would still starve. That wasn't gonna happen. The other man died on this planet, it was gonna be at Riddick's hands, with Riddick's shiv in his spine—no slow starvation.

"Wait," Riddick said. Heard the retreating footsteps stop. "I heard whispers."

The blonde turned back towards him, footsteps light, tentative. "What whispers?" she asked.

Riddick couldn't resist. "The ones telling me to go for the sweet spot. Just to the left of the spine. Forth lumbar down—"

"Riddick," his mongoose said, very quietly.

He paused, sighed. Then he told the truth. "Whispers under the ground. As if there's something hungry down there."

"You're saying an animal killed him?" the blonde asked, voice all disbelief. "You're a murderer, and Zeke was alone—probably the first chance you had to kill someone here. You just told me about your sweet spot, Riddick. Do you really think I'm going to believe you never touched him?"

Riddick couldn't help a laugh. "All you people are so scared of me. Most days, I'd take that as a compliment. But it ain't me you've got to worry about now."

"Look at me and say that again," the blonde challenged. "Look me in the eyes."

"Thanks but no thanks," Riddick said, and smiled wide.

The blonde sighed. "Potter," she said, and wasn't it interesting that she would turn to his mongoose? The dark-haired man had been busy. "Do you have any idea of what happened?"

"I think Riddick's telling the truth," the other man said. "He didn't have enough time to hide the body, Fry. Shazza and I were there too soon after the gunshots went off."

"How do you know he didn't fire them himself?"

"Please," his mongoose said. "Like Riddick would get away with murder, find a weapon he could use to hunt more of us down, and then fire into the air just for fun and get himself caught. Do you really think he's that stupid?"

Riddick could hear the blonde turn to him. "You've got the wrong killer," he said. He could almost smell the way she wavered, could feel it in the air. She was starting to believe him, even though she didn't want to. It was a beautiful thing to watch.

"He's not in the hole," the blonde said, but Riddick could tell he had her. "We looked."

"Look deeper," he said. Smelled sweat in the air, sharp with fear, and knew she would do it.

"Potter," the blonde started, but his mongoose cut her off.

"I'll make sure he behaves. Go." Riddick heard her footsteps retreating back across the floor, through the door, away. "Though what she thinks you're going to do, all chained up like that, I can't even begin to say," his mongoose continued, once the woman was gone. Riddick just leaned back on his stool, made himself more comfortable. After a few minutes of silence, his mongoose finally asked, "Riddick?" Riddick grunted in acknowledgment. "Show me your eyes."

Riddick didn't say it was going to hurt—he was pretty sure his mongoose knew that. Black-haired man had seen Riddick squinting in the sun earlier, after all. But he didn't know why, and needed to.

Slowly, Riddick opened his eyes.

It burned—he'd known it was going to. Took a second to adjust, to see through the blur. When he could, he turned towards his mongoose.

Everything was too bright. His mongoose was brighter. Riddick couldn't explain why—it didn't hurt to look at, wasn't a sunlight sort of bright. The other man just seemed lit up, like there was something burning inside him that showed through his skin. The energy was brightest in his eyes. Riddick remembered that, from before, how his mongoose's eyes had shone, but it hadn't looked like this with the goggles. Without them, his mongoose's eyes were like stars, not painful to look at but nothing like eyes should be. Sweat, cinnamon and static electricity, Riddick thought. He'd be needing an explanation for the static electricity soon.

While Riddick had been looking at his mongoose, the other man had been doing the same. Staring at Riddick's open eyes, like he was fascinated. Like they were beautiful. Riddick wouldn't know. He hadn't seen himself clearly in a mirror since he'd had the job done—had no idea how the eyes had come out. But his mongoose stared. Then, completely without irony for the first time, the other man said, "Viper." Riddick grinned.

He smelled the kid—sweat, sugar, cotton—just before the kid spoke. "Where the hell can I get eyes like that?"

His mongoose jerked and turned to face the kid on the stairs. A weakness, not paying attention like that. Riddick was chained up, though, and couldn't use it, and he wasn't gonna let anyone else close enough to try. So, an excusable mistake, for now. "Gotta kill a few people," Riddick said, moving his eyes to the small shape of the kid.

Kid dropped down a step to the floor, metal clanging. "Okay. I can do it." Riddick knew better. Still adorable, though.

Riddick turned back to his mongoose and said, explaining, "Then you gotta get sent to a slam where they say you'll never see daylight again. So you dig up a doctor, and pay him twenty menthol Kools to do a surgical shine job on your eyeballs."

"So you can see who's sneaking up on you in the dark?" the kid asked, enthusiastically.

"Exactly," Riddick confirmed, and saw his mongoose understand.

Then the other man smiled, expression ironic. "And then you wind up on a planet with three fucking suns and no night, huh?"

"Life's a bitch," Riddick said.

"Amen," his mongoose said, and laughed.

...

In the end, it was Shazza who went into the hole.

She and Fry had had a bit of an argument over it—Fry was determined that she should be the one to go in, with Shazza equally set that it was going to be her. "I'm the captain," Fry said, arms crossed. "If anyone goes into danger it should be me." The strange thing Johns' reaction to this claim; Shazza happened to catch him out of the corner of her eye and realized he looked a little disbelieving, like Fry was making claims she wouldn't be able to back up. Shazza didn't begin to know why that was his reaction, but it was interesting. The part of Shazza that wasn't numb and desperately angry cataloged that for later consideration.

"Zeke is my husband," Shazza answered. "I need to know." That, in the end, ended the argument fairly conclusively.

They attached a cord to her belt, to pull her out with in case she got stuck. Shazza wasn't sure of what they expected to happen. She was a prospector, after all, an explorer and a settler—if they honestly believed a little bit of climbing through tunnels would be too much for her, they had no idea who she was. Considering she had not only the necessary skill to carry this out, but also a special motivation to finish this exploration—and, god, _Zeke—_Shazza was fairly certain the cord would be more a hindrance than a help.

She handed the cord off to the Imam; he was strong, for a religious man, and sensible enough not to pull her out if there wasn't an emergency. "Don't let this pull tight, but don't give it too much slack either," she instructed him, already looking at the hole and picturing what she might be getting into. "I don't want it getting caught on anything."

"Understood," the Imam said. He raised one hand and clasped her shoulder with it, smiling in encouragement. "You are very brave, Shazza."

Shazza turned back to him and raised one eyebrow. "Why? Because Riddick says there are monsters in the dark?" She wasn't going to believe that. If anything had harmed her husband, her bet was on it being Riddick. It was too convenient, for the boogie men under the hill to rise up and attack her husband _just _as Riddick arrived. No, she would always put her bet on a human killer. She would be completely certain of it, too, if it wasn't for the fact that Harry seemed to believe the murderer. So far, Harry had been the single most trustworthy person on this planet. That he suddenly believed Riddick's fairy tales was surprising, and a bit disappointing. Still, Shazza would go down the hole and see for herself—she knew Harry would believe her, if she told him she hadn't seen anything.

The Imam shook his head, though. "No. No matter what is under this ground, you are courageous because you must know, even if that knowledge is distasteful to you." His hand squeezed her shoulder gently, and then he released her. "I hope you are satisfied by what you find," he said, and nodded towards the hole.

Shazza gave one look around, taking in Fry, Johns, the Imam and Jack, all standing expectantly in front of the grave. Then she dropped down into the grave, brushed the last of the sand that blocked the hole away, turned on her flashlight, and began to crawl.

The tunnel she entered had a low ceiling, so much so that she had to stay on all fours for the first twenty or so feet. Trying to crawl with three limbs while she held her flashlight in her other hand was awkward at best, but Shazza ignored the difficulty of movement and carried on. Once she was past the first twenty feet, the tunnel opened up into a cave, with a ceiling high enough that she could stand upright within it.

Whatever she had been expecting, it hadn't been this. Just ten feet below the ground they'd all been walking on were a labyrinth of tunnels and caves. Shazza took a moment to look around and realized that more, similar caves branched off in all directions. She also found another hole in the ground, which dropped off maybe fifteen feet into another cave below. "My god," she said, looking down; the cave below her had yet another hole, which dropped into yet another cave, and it continued on even to the point where her flashlight stopped being able to pierce the darkness. The sheer number of caves that must exist were astounding—if Shazza hadn't known better, she would have said the entire planet was completely hollow.

All that was interesting, but it wasn't what she was here to find out. Dragging her attention away from the caves below, Shazza raised her flashlight and began to look around the area she was occupying. The walls of the cave were thin, and the spires on the horizon above were apparently hollow—and, more importantly, she couldn't find any sign of her husband.

"Zeke!" she called out, hoping that he might answer. "Are you anywhere in here?"

The walls echoed her words back to her, but her husband did not answer.

It took her five more minutes, after that, to find what she had been looking for. When she did, she wished she hadn't. Just a shoe, and mangled skin: Shazza hadn't ever wanted proof that her husband had been _ripped apart_. Numbly, Shazza turned away from the only remnants of her husband that she could find, fell to her knees, and threw up. Her mouth tasted disgusting after, but there was nothing to be done about that—it took everything she had to stop from vomiting a second time. Shazza rocked back on her heels, covered her face with her hands, and tried desperately to breathe.

She didn't cry; she'd already cried. Shazza had mourned Zeke already—from the moment she'd seen the blood, and seen Riddick, she'd known her husband was dead. Finding what was left of him, like this, was nothing but confirmation of what she'd already known. Shazza felt hollow, and terribly alone, but found that she could not cry. Distantly, she thought she might be in shock. It didn't matter.

While she kneeled in the cave, eyes closed against the dark, Shazza thought. It was true that Riddick was a monster; Shazza never doubted that. However, she'd seen Riddick above the grave, had seen that the only weapon he carried was a bone white shiv. What had happened to Zeke couldn't have been done with just a shiv. She hadn't looked for very long—god, how could she have looked—but she had formed a distinct impression that teeth and claws had been involved. Her husband had been devoured, she realized, and Riddick had had nothing to do with it.

In the very moment that Shazza first gave any credence to Riddick's monsters, she heard the first shriek.

Shazza didn't think, didn't look for them. She understood what she was up against, and she was not an idiot. The second she heard the sound, her eyes snapped open, and she was moving. There was the tunnel, but Shazza wouldn't be able to crawl back through it fast enough, not if there were many of them—and, having seen how large the caves were, Shazza didn't doubt that there would be. That left the spire, hollow at the top, with sunlight beckoning down. Shazza gave one quick tug to her line to ensure she had enough give, and then began to climb.

She was only just quick enough. The second after she had lifted herself entirely inside the spire, she felt the air shift just were her foot had been, as if something very large had lunged and only barely missed. "Oh god," she heard herself saying, but she was already climbing further, bracing herself against the circular walls and using any available handholds to pull herself up.

When her line snagged, Shazza was absolutely certain for just one second that she was going to die in those caves, just like her husband had. "No!" she said, a moment later, and then she turned her head towards the opening of the spire and screamed at the top of her lungs, wordless and _loud_, because she was _not going to die_.

She didn't know how long she stayed like that, clinging to the walls and screaming, fighting the force that had caught at her cord and was trying to pull her back down. All Shazza cared about was that, before she fell into the dark, a pickaxe crashed through the wall of the spire, and then there were hands reaching for her. Throwing her arms up, Shazza gripped the hands tightly and pushed off with her feet, helping the others in pulling her out of the hole.

She burst into daylight, with the Imam and Johns holding on to her so tightly that she thought she might have bruises, and had never been so glad in her life. "Cut the cord," she said, once her feet were flat on the sand, and returned both grips with equal force. "Don't let go of me until you cut this cord off, there's something pulling below."

Johns had a knife, and pulled it out with his free hand. Fortunately, he was quick with it. Just as Shazza felt a strong tug against the cord—probably strong enough to pull her back through the spire, into the caves below—Johns cut the cord. Unattached, it fell back through the spire and was gone from Shazza's view.

"My god," she said, and let go of Johns and the Imam to wrap her arms around herself. "I could be dead. I could have died."

A small hand wrapped around her arm, and Shazza looked down to see Jack. "I heard you, Shazza," he said.

"Thank you," she said, and then surprised even herself by tugging Jack close and wrapping one arm around him for comfort. "Thank you so much."

Jack smiled up at her, and stopped looking quite so wide eyed. "I'm glad you're okay," he told her, softly, like it was something to be embarrassed about. Then, because he was a child with the worst choice of role models, he asked, "Shazza? Was Riddick right about what's down there?"

Shazza looked up, and met Fry's gaze. The blonde looked shaken, as if she realized that she, rather than Shazza, could have walked into those caves. Fry seemed to realize that she probably would not have fared as well as Shazza.

"Yes," Shazza said, and then looked to Johns, because he had become their defacto leader, and this was something he would need to know. "Riddick's monsters exist." And, she added mentally, I owe Harry an apology.

…

Harry had almost fallen properly asleep by the time that Johns came to see them.

It had taken him well over an hour to even get comfortable. When Johns had locked him up, the blue-eyed man had removed his handcuffs, wrapped his arms around a pole, and handcuffed him again—so, now, not only were his hands caught behind his back, but they were also stretched at bizarre angles, causing the cuffs to dig into Harry's wrists and restricting any range of motion he might have had. As if that wasn't bad enough, Johns had used some of the same chain they'd tied Riddick up with to also hook his feet together. Essentially that left Harry half lying down and half sitting up, with his back straight against the pole and his legs splayed out in front of him. Overall, the effect was ridiculously uncomfortable.

Once he'd managed to find a position that neither wrenched his arms too badly nor caused his legs to fall asleep, it had been almost impossible not to just pass out. Harry had had a busy couple of days, especially when compared to the forced unconsciousness he'd experienced in the pod for who knows how long before that. The first time he drifted off and jerked back awake, Riddick had laughed at him. "Getting sloppy, mongoose," the bigger man said, still staring him down with those impossible eyes.

Harry had just snorted. Riddick was going to insist on calling him that, wasn't he? "Shut up, Viper," he said, drowsily, and was disappointed to find the sarcasm he'd meant to attach to the name almost entirely missing. "Everybody has to sleep sometime. 'M putting you on watch."

After that, Riddick had just ignored the way Harry shifted in and out of sleep. From the glimpses Harry got of him when he was awake, apparently Riddick was taking his job as sentry seriously.

It was a little terrifying, actually. Harry had no misconceptions about Riddick; the bigger man was a murderer, something of a sadist, and possibly a bit of a sociopath to complete the package. He was not, in any way, a nice man. None of that, however, explained exactly why Riddick had taken to him so quickly. Yes, the murderer had reserved his death—which was fairly twisted in and of itself, and probably should not seem as oddly sweet as it seemed to Harry—but this was above and beyond that. If Riddick was simply out for Harry's blood, he probably wouldn't put half so much effort into protecting Harry, or bothering to listen to him.

Harry was left with only one explanation for Riddick's behavior, and it wasn't one he liked. Already Harry himself had felt it twice, and far more strongly than he'd expected to. Though Harry wouldn't say he trusted Riddick, or even liked the man for that matter, he was already protective of the murderer, and—though he hated to admit it—a little bit possessive. Harry knew that if this kept up, he wouldn't be able to avoid it forever. He was going to try, though.

For a long while, Harry drifted like this, between considering what on Earth he was going to do with Riddick and light dozing—and, when he had finally reached what felt like actual sleep, Riddick said, "Wake up," and just moments later Johns entered the room.

Sleeping in front of Riddick was one thing; sleeping in front of Johns was a whole different class of stupid. Harry was awake moments later. He shifted as straight as he could, into a position that was far less comfortable and far more likely to earn some sort of acknowledgment from Johns. "So," he said, and tried to pretend he wasn't slumped across the floor in a completely undignified position, "I take it someone went into the hole."

Johns' eyes flicked to him, but they focused on Riddick a second later. Harry could already see how this conversation was going to go. "Shazza went down," Johns confirmed, as though Riddick was the one who had asked the question.

"Merlin," Harry said, under his breath. He'd forgotten, of course, that Riddick could hear him—come to that, Harry would need to find out at some point soon _why _Riddick's senses were so good— and the murderer shot him a questioning look about the exclamation a second later. Well, there was one more thing Harry would have to pass off as a quirk. "What did she find?"

"What you said she would," Johns answered, and Harry winced.

Riddick leaned forward, then, slowly; Harry knew he'd done it for effect because it made his chains scrape loudly against the metal holding them. "Why are you here, Johns?" Riddick said, his voice even lower than usual. "Thought you were gonna leave us to die. Or do you need us, now that you know we're not the worst things out here?" He smiled at Johns like a shark that scented blood, wide and toothy.

To his credit, Johns had the good sense not to say _yes_, not when Riddick looked like that. "It's going to go like this, Riddick. I'm going to set you free, and after that you are going to do everything I say. No chains, no shivs, and no goddamned sneezing without my permission."

Riddick turned to Harry, as if appraising him with those dark, ridiculously luminescent eyes. "And him?"

"Potter can stay," Johns said, and smirked darkly down at Harry. Harry pictured feeding Johns to a Blast-ended Skrewt and smiled brightly in return.

"No," Riddick said, and leaned back in his seat. "Protect yourselves. It's kinda cosy here."

Harry wished he was surprised. He also wished he had any damned clue of how Johns would react.

His answer came a moment later, when Johns frowned, one hand dropping to the holster of his gun. "That's not the deal, Riddick," Johns said. "Just you. Protect us while we're repairing the ship, and I might even stop chasing you when we get off this planet. I don't see anything to prove you didn't just die in the crash. Think about it."

Riddick just shrugged, another movement that made the chains clang loudly. "Two options, Johns. One, you kill me—ghost me, motherfucker, before I get to you. Leave him," and he indicated Harry, "to die. And then see how loud you scream when the whispers get you. Or, you let us go. I make sure nothing kills you in your sleep." His grin widened, and he said, "I probably won't even kill you myself."

"You don't get to set terms," Johns said, his teeth clenched. "That isn't how this goes."

"Two options," Riddick repeated, and waited.

Under his breath, Harry said, "My god, the testosterone," mostly because he enjoyed watching Riddick try to stifle a laugh.

Harry had seen a Muggle Western movie once, when Duddley was watching one on the telly and Harry had not been able to ignore the sounds. He didn't remember anything in particular about its plot—he did recall, though, one scene where two of the characters had faced each other for nearly fifteen minutes before ever drawing their guns. Duddley had apparently found this exciting. Harry had found it ridiculous, which was probably a good explanation for his complete lack of patience with the staring contest between Riddick and Johns.

"Johns," Harry said, and the blue-eyed man broke his gaze away from Riddick to turn reluctantly down towards Harry. "You need us. It's really that simple."

For a long moment, Johns waited. Then he drew his gun, spun it towards Riddick—

"No," Harry said, not loud but intent, because if Johns so much as _tried—_

—and shot the hook holding Riddick's chains to the wall.

Riddick, who had turned his head away from the shot instinctively, looked back at Johns. "Yeah, you're a big man," Riddick said, low voice mocking. Then he lunged forward, coming up to his feet in one motion, his chains dragging out behind him. The movement carried him close to Johns, who raised the gun to press into Riddick's chest. Riddick just smiled, rolled his shoulders, and said, "Now him."

Getting the handcuffs off was possibly the best thing that had happened to Harry since he'd landed on this planet. As soon as they were off, he shrugged his shoulders forward, trying to work out some of the ache the handcuffs had caused him. His wrists were red and raw from repeated impact with the cuffs. Johns wound up cutting off the chains that had bound his feet, and finally, finally Harry was entirely free.

"C'mon," Riddick said, and offered a hand to help him up.

Harry looked up at Riddick in disbelief, and then pushed to his feet on his own. He deliberately bumped his shoulder against Riddick's as he passed the larger man. "Keep up, _Viper_," he said, this time with all the sarcasm he'd meant to include the first time.

"Believe me, lil' mongoose," Riddick said, voice amused, "I'm going to."

…

After that, there was the usual chaos that comes of having to move a group of eleven people to a new place all at once. Or, actually, there was that chaos, with the added chaos of having both a serial killer and a number of unarmed civilians in their midst. Harry probably shouldn't have found the results as funny as he did.

Riddick of the visibly broad shoulders and absurd muscles was naturally assigned the job of carrying the sheet metal Shazza had cut off, as well as the heavier tools that would be needed. That was probably a wise choice, as it got Riddick a little out of the way. However, it also brought Riddick into regular contact with the antiquities dealer Paris, who had somehow wormed his way into having the easy job of arranging things on the sandcat. Watching the cowardly, bespectacled man stutter his way through interactions with Riddick was entirely too amusing to Harry, especially given that Riddick seemed to be using his best predatory grins to exacerbate the issue.

Harry, meanwhile, had decided to help Shazza carry the numerous bits of lighter equipment she thought the repairs might require. "Harry," Shazza said, when he approached. "I'm sorry. I should have listened to you when you said you trusted Riddick."

The last thing Harry had been expecting was an apology. He blinked in surprise, but managed, "It doesn't matter, Shazza. You needed to know, either way."

"Maybe," she said, and then pointed to a series of metallic objects Harry couldn't recognize and said, "carry those." Things were okay between them after that.

As far as Harry knew, the Imam and his kids were in charge of packing their oxygen, the liquor they were using for hydration until they could get the water pump working, and the spare clothes they'd salvaged from the crashed cargo compartment. He hadn't kept tabs on Fry and Johns during the process of packing up the sandcat, but he assumed they were doing _something _mildly productive, unlike Jack, who largely stayed underfoot and was entirely too enthusiastic the whole time. When he wasn't shadowing Riddick's footsteps, he was tagging along after Harry—apparently, the conversation they'd had in front of the kid when they were locked up together had made the kid respect Harry a little more. Harry wasn't certain if he should find that flattering or terrifying.

Only at the very end of the packing did Harry find the last thing he'd been missing. He'd gone off on Shazza's orders to find Fry and Johns, and had located them in the engine room of the cargo ship, debating over whether they should bring batteries for the transport ship with them on the first trip or establish hull integrity first. Harry, who didn't really care one way or another, simply told them it was time to be heading out, and led them both towards the sandcat as they agreed to bring the batteries later.

It was then, as he led them through the ship to get outside, that Harry encountered his sword once again. It had deposited itself in the first passenger compartment, in the midst of all the rubble and open pods. This time, unlike all the previous ones in which it had found him, Harry actually had his hands free to pick it up. "So that's where you wound up," Harry said, and lifted the sword. It hummed in his hands, vibrating out a short greeting before falling still. Harry replaced the scabbard in his belt, where he had originally meant it to stay, and felt properly safe for the first time in days.

"That sword wasn't there before," Fry said, looking highly confused.

"Of course it was," Harry denied, and continued on his way.

The only thing Riddick had to say to the addition of the sword was, "Can you use that?" He was leaned against the sandcat, goggles over his eyes and a thoughtful look on his face, every inch the predator again. Harry was surprised to find that he actually liked the man better this way. Somehow it seemed more honest for Riddick to be visibly dangerous. Harry wondered how long it would take Riddick to find a shiv again.

"Wanna find out?" Harry said, and wrapped his hand around the hilt. The metal of the sword rang out under his grip.

"Someday," Riddick said, and sprung easily onto the sandcat. Harry followed after, grinning.

…

When everything was tamped down, and everyone situated, Shazza asked from the driver's seat, "Ready to go?"

"Yes," nearly everyone said at once.

"Sit tight, then," Shazza said, and led them away over sand dunes, towards the settlement that would be their home.

**So there you are, dear readers—this chapter is twenty-three pages long, and will likely be the longest chapter I'll write for a while. If you made it this far, please take a second to drop me a review. As ever, knowing the opinions of my readers can only help to make me a better writer, and hearing from all of you makes my day. :)**

**This chapter stuck to Pitch Black's canon far more than last chapter—this is because, as of next chapter, I'm going to be diverging from movie canon for a very long time, possibly even permanently. These scenes will not be the very last ones you recognize from the movie, but there will be a large gap before the next ones. I hope everyone sticks with me, since we're finally getting to my favorite parts of the story.**

**I'm posting this chapter on a Monday, so, for now, that will be my weekly update day. If I find I'm writing quickly enough to cover two days a week, I'll change that schedule—for now, I'm promising another chapter a week from today. I know I was on hiatus for a ridiculously long time, but I now have both the time and inspiration necessary to regularly update this story, and I will stick to at least my once weekly update schedule for the rest of the summer.**

**Thank you so much to everyone who reviewed. As ever, I responded to every reviewer who has their PM option enabled. For my anonymous reviewers and those with their PM's disabled: I appreciated every review you left me. Thanks also to anyone who favorited Lares or put it on their story alerts. If any of you have the time, please drop a review. :D**

**Next chapter~In which life begins in the settlement, Fry and Shazza attempt repairs, and there is a small problem in that they don't have any food.**


	8. Chapter 8

**Author's note: Wow, uh, this chapter ran a little longer than I thought it would. Not nearly so long as last chapter, but still longer than expected. I give you, dear readers, Lares' eighth chapter, otherwise known as the chapter where Riddick refused to go away and Harry was way more revealing than I meant him to be. -sighs-**

**Thank you to every reader who reviewed last chapter. As I am getting this chapter out a bit late in the day, I'm planning to do review responses after I update as opposed to before. If I answer all sixty odd reviews I got last chapter now, this update would be delayed by well over an hour. That said, I adored every review I got last chapter, and am highly grateful for the positive responses. :) I should get back to all my lovely readers more personally in a short while.**

**Also, thanks to Psychotic Sprite for help with brainstorming and beta work. :) It was very much appreciated, darling.**

**I hope you all enjoy. :D**

The ride to the settlement was actually fairly silent; it was this that first made Harry realize how _tired _everyone around him was.

Without any naturally occurring night, it honestly hadn't occurred to Harry to consider how poorly rested they all were. He, of course, had managed to sneak in a few brief naps while he and Riddick were being held in the ship, and so didn't feel as tired as he might have otherwise. Still, the fact remained that both the blue and orange suns had risen and set twice since they had come to the planet, meaning that all the survivors had been awake for what Harry was going to consider two days. He had no idea what that might convert into in hours, but the fact remained that not sleeping for any equivalent of two days was generally a bad idea.

It was starting to wear on all of them, now. Harry could see it in the shadows under Shazza's eyes, and the way Jack kept yawning quietly ahead of Harry in the sandcat. Johns and Riddick hid their physical exhaustion better, but it still showed in their actions; both men were naturally aggressive, yes, but the amount of time they spent snapping at each other in the sandcat was too great to be explained solely by anger. The Imam's smallest boy was leaned against the religious man's side, and, from the way his head jerked from time to time, seemed to be fighting the urge to sleep. The Imam's other two apprentices weren't looking much better. Of all of them, only Fry and Paris seemed unchanged, but Harry thought that was more because they were tightly wound all the time than because they weren't feeling fatigue.

"Merlin," Harry said to himself, careful to keep his voice soft. He was starting to realize just what a recipe for trouble they had on their hands. A murderer and a cop stranded together on a desert planet with little sleep was more than bad enough. When the rest of them—a high-energy pilot, a mourning prospector, a holy man, an antiquities dealer, a magical fugitive, and four children—were thrown in, the situation started to enter the territory of either bad jokes or potential catastrophes. With Harry's luck, he figured it would lean far more toward the latter than the former.

"Why do you say that?"

Harry startled. He hadn't expected Riddick's voice in his ear, especially not the low, almost purring voice the murderer tended to use in moments where the conversation was completely under his control. Actually, he hadn't even noticed Riddick moving. Five minutes before, Riddick had been farther in front, close enough to Johns to stare the man down, and also far enough forward to scout the sands ahead. Now he was just in front of Harry's position in the sandcat, and just behind his left shoulder, leaning back against the sandcat so that his lips were brushing the shell of Harry's ear. Harry might not actively consider himself in danger from Riddick at the moment, but he wasn't so naïve as to think that that couldn't change at any time. He shouldn't be so comfortable around Riddick. Apparently, though, he was also more tired than he thought—he couldn't explain why he would have been so out of touch with his surroundings otherwise.

"Say what?" he asked, quietly enough that only Riddick would be able to make out the words.

"Merlin," Riddick said, the name rolling off his tongue fluidly. "As if he's more than an old time legend. What does some folktale wizard have to do with you, lil' mongoose?"

Harry frowned. "If you must call me mongoose, can you at least drop the 'little'?" Harry asked, aware that he sounded nearly as petulant as he did irritated. The only answer he got for his trouble was the soft release of Riddick's breath across the back of his neck, and a quiet laugh. "It's just a phrase," Harry said, after a moment of not entirely comfortable silence. "A lot of people used it, back where I come from."

Riddick seemed to think about that for a minute, if the silence was anything to go by. Harry took the time to settle himself more comfortably into the sandcat. He was almost used to the rocking, bumping motion of the cart now, which was good, since they'd likely be using the vehicle a lot. Fry seemed to have hopes for the repairs, but a lot of damage had been done to the little transport ship, and Harry had no doubts that more trips would be required to scavenge the cargo ship for useful materials. Their home base would be the settlement, yes, but they'd likely be visiting the cargo ship quite a bit in the future. Harry could see a lot of long trips across sand featuring in his future.

"And where is that?" Riddick asked, finally.

"Where I come from?" Harry asked, by way of confirmation, and actually felt Riddick nod in answer. Apparently the murderer's concept of personal space was somewhat lacking. Harry wished he was awake enough to be more upset about that. "A long way from here," he said, vaguely, and grinned slightly at the irritation he knew his non-answer would be causing Riddick.

Riddick probably would have questioned him further, but Johns took that moment to cut in. "Don't think I don't see you two whispering back there," the blue-eyed man cut in from the front of the sandcat. Harry turned his head to face Johns, and saw him frowning back at them.

"Afraid we're plotting against you?" Harry asked, his voice clearly conveying his incredulity on the matter. First of all, while Johns was not particularly Harry's favorite person on this planet in any sense of the word, the fact remained that he was strong enough and skilled enough to be of some use in getting off the planet—right now, every able pair of hands counted. Beyond that, even, was the fact that Harry was not a complete idiot. If he did ever decide to scheme with Riddick, he was unlikely to do so while both in public and surrounded by the other survivors, let alone do so less than five feet away from Johns.

Johns didn't bother to answer that question—he wouldn't have even pointed out their conversation if he didn't think the answer was yes. Instead he said, "I want you up here in the front by me, Riddick. Wouldn't want you getting ideas." His voice was drawling and slightly sarcastic as he said it. Harry decided that he really did need to sleep in the near future, before exhaustion and irritation made actually punching the blue-eyed man in the face seem like a good idea.

"Why don't you come back here?" Riddick asked, because he was the most confrontational bastard Harry had ever met, and he couldn't let anything go without a challenge.

"I could," Johns agreed, voice too friendly to be an actual offer, "but if I did you'd learn the joys of traveling unconscious."

"Would you please just play nicely with others, Riddick?" Harry asked, injecting as much sarcasm as he could into the question while still keeping it whisper soft. That tone seemed to be something Riddick responded to, even if that response was amused indulgence at best, rather than any sort of respectful obedience.

Harry was fairly certain he was the only one who noticed the way that Riddick leaned in closer to Harry as he stood. Trying to explain to anyone else why the murderer of their group felt the need to sniff him would have made for an awkward couple of minutes, certainly, and Harry was very glad a few minutes later to have avoided that conversation entirely. Still, there was no denying that smelling Harry was exactly what Riddick did, and by the time Harry had recognized the inhaling sound for what it was, Riddick was already up and moving away, leaving Harry unable to question him on the matter. Riddick had smelled his hair once before, in the boneyard, but Harry had assumed that was more symbolic than anything else. Now, though, he wondered.

It was possible that Paris had noticed something odd about Riddick's movements; he did stare at Harry, in the moments after Riddick had left, with wide eyes behind his glasses and a slightly opened mouth. The look was far more comical than disturbing, and one pointed glare from Harry was enough to have the antiquities dealer looking away, pushing his spectacles up his nose as he turned. That pretty much marked the end of the matter.

Harry wasn't sure if it was a good sign, or a sign of just how bizarre his life had become, that that interaction was the highlight of the entire trip.

…

The exhaustion Harry had noticed half an hour earlier played a large part in dictating the first actions the survivors took when they got to the settlement. Far from having repairs on their minds, Harry noticed that the others around him seemed to have come to the conclusion that they needed sleep badly. Accordingly, the first thing that happened in the settlement was an assignment of quarters.

Johns was the one primarily in charge of quarters, which irritated Harry somewhat. He was very much not in favor of the leadership the other survivors kept handing Johns, but knew there was very little he could do about it. Of all the survivors, the only ones who liked him seemed to be Shazza, Riddick, and Jack—of those three, Shazza was the only one whose opinion would count with the other survivors. Fry had, for the moment, thrown her lot in with Johns, which counted for a lot politically considering that she was their captain, and their best hope of getting off the planet; Paris and the Imam seemed to be at least nominally behind Johns, from what Harry had seen. Harry wasn't stupid. With most of the support of the survivors falling behind Johns, for the moment, there wasn't much of anything Harry could say or do to go against the blue-eyed man. That still didn't make him comfortable with the way that Johns had suddenly become their leader simply because he had a uniform and badge.

Johns' housing choices, at least, made enough sense that Harry didn't see the need to protest them. Instead of allowing the survivors to choose their own abodes within the large residential section of the settlement, Johns selected an area near where they had left the sandcat, and announced that they would all choose a space within that area.

The settlement seemed to have been designed to accommodate mostly single individuals—while there were a number of small, one-room dwellings, there were only a few with enough space to lodge a household. The only one of these within their designated area was chosen by the Imam and his apprentices, so that the holy man could keep an eye on his charges. While he offered to allow Jack to room with them as well, the kid was pretty adamant about having a building all to himself. Harry didn't like the idea of the kid being able to wander off by himself in the night, and exchanged a quick look with Shazza that told him she was of the same opinion, but was too tired to argue when Johns compromised by giving Jack a room surrounded by those claimed by the adults, lessening his chances of successfully sneaking away.

Johns chose the room closest to the sandcat—"So no one," with a pointed look at Riddick, "will try running off when we're sleeping." Harry was a little curious to see whether Johns would insist Riddick take the room closest to him, in order to keep a look out for the murderer, or farthest away, so Johns could pretend he was safe in his sleep. In the end, Fry decided to take the room beside Johns, without Johns needing to put an opinion in, and that was the end of the matter. Harry did wonder a little about whether Fry and Johns were sleeping together—it wasn't unreasonable, from what he'd seen—but he wasn't big on gossip when he was properly awake, and was even less concerned with it when he was tired as all hell.

Shazza chose a room on the far side of the area, and Harry deliberately took the one next to hers. "Trying to protect me?" she asked, raising an eyebrow at him when he settled into his room.

Harry just smiled and asked, "Are you complaining?" He was glad that Shazza answered no. It would reassure him to be able to keep an eye on her—he always had formed friendships fast, and considering that she was about the only person on this planet that he could stand on a regular basis, he saw no harm in looking after her. If knowing he was nearby reassured her in anyway, Harry couldn't tell from looking, but it did make him feel better at least.

Paris chose a room somewhere in the middle, predictably sheltered between Fry and Johns on one side and Harry on the other. Harry actually didn't mind that instinctive cowardice overmuch. He was used to grown adults hiding behind him—it had been something of a theme in his teenaged years, actually—and was actually somewhat pleased to find _one _predictable person had been stranded with them, considering that he'd also been stuck with a mercurial cop and a murderer who happened to be amused by him.

The murderer in question was the last one to select a room. Harry found out the reason for this when he was settling in to his own room.

"No," he said, when he realized exactly what Riddick intended. "I am not living with you, _no._"

"Careful, mongoose," Riddick said. He reached one hand up and readjusted his goggles, either out of genuine need to be better shielded from the suns, or to remind Harry just what sort of eyes were staring him down from behind those black lenses. "Might hurt my feelings."

"And you might put a shiv in my chest while I sleep," Harry said. "This actually isn't a debate, Riddick."

"If I do kill you," Riddick said, "it won't be while you sleep."

Harry took a moment to blink at Riddick incredulously. "You really don't see why that fails to reassure me, do you?" he asked. The world, he decided, must be an interesting place when seen through Riddick's eyes. The worst part was, he couldn't quite tell if Riddick was serious, or simply jerking him around, the way he'd done when Fry had asked about the whispers.

"Trusted me to watch you sleep while we were at the ship," Riddick said, by way of a reminder. The murderer had settled into the door frame of Harry's new lodging, arms crossed casually across his chest in a way that made his already defined biceps appear larger. His posture was relaxed and easy, and he watched Harry removing abandoned belongings from the shelves of the room with a small grin playing across his lips.

"You were chained to a stool at that point, Viper," Harry said. He looked around, and was finally satisfied that he'd cleared away all the broken picture frames, scattered clothing and other assorted possessions that had originally been littered around the small room. It was bad enough knowing the room's former inhabitant had likely met a bad end; having physical reminders of that fact was downright creepy. "By the way, when I said this wasn't a debate, I meant that I am far too tired to be amused by this, and that there's a perfectly usable room about twenty feet to the right of this one."

"Mm," Riddick agreed, "but that room doesn't have you in it." _That _was so far off the spectrum of responses Harry had been expecting that he almost didn't know what to do with it. Either that line had been blatant, unapologetic flirting—which Harry wouldn't have believed if Riddick's voice hadn't dipped into an even lower register as he spoke—or it was the predator in Riddick expressing some twisted desire to keep an eye on his chosen prey. Neither of those choices was anything Harry was particularly comfortable with.

"You are unbelievable," Harry said. "Smell me, stalk me, fine, I can hardly stop you from that, but you are not sleeping with me. Go away."

Riddick laughed, and looked at him like he was actually the most amusing human being to ever set foot on any planet. "You're tired," he said, like this was some sort of revelation.

"Yes, I think I said that a moment ago, actually," Harry said. He made a point of removing his sword and its scabbard from his belt, resting them against the wall just beside the narrow cot he would be sleeping on. Then he unbuckled the belt he had been using to hold them, and set it down as well. Then, when he thought he'd made it clear enough that he was undressing for bed, he turned back to Riddick and asked, "Do you mind?"

Much to Harry's irritation, Riddick didn't answer beyond letting out another low chuckle and giving Harry a once over. Then, looking as though he'd come to some conclusion that he wasn't going to share, Riddick turned away from the door and walked away without a word. Less than a minute later, Harry heard the door of the room to his right swing open with a creak.

Harry stared down the empty doorway for a second, once again wondering what the hell he was going to do with Riddick. Then he snorted, categorized the whole thing as something he would deal with when he was properly awake, and shut the door. Regardless of the amount of light still being cast by the single sun presently in the sky, Harry was asleep almost as soon as his head hit the pillow.

…

Harry dreamed.

_There was a wand pressed to the skin at the back of Harry's neck._

_ Harry had frozen by instinct the very moment he first felt the cold wood at his skin. It was almost sad that he recognized the feeling so clearly, recognized the way the little hairs at the back of his neck raised at that chilled contact. He'd been walking down the street, minding his own business, and now he was being threatened. He almost wished the experience was unusual._

_ "You'll want to think twice about that," he cautioned, his own fingers pressing against his wand, concealed by the sleeve of his robe. He'd taken to keeping it in a harness on his upper arm, to allow for easier release in situations just like this one; as soon as his would-be assaulter had come up behind him, Harry's wand had been in his hand. _

_ A voice, neither high nor low but clearly male nevertheless, came from behind him. "Will I?" the other man asked, supremely overconfident, a laugh in his voice._

_"Protego," Harry said, under his breath, and felt his magic flow into casting the spell. He didn't move his wand arm—this was the third spell he had managed to learn wandless, and though he still preferred to use the movements for the spell, at the moment it would only betray his intention. Then, when he felt the ripple of a shield spell properly cast, he spun. The man behind him cursed, and fired off a stunner, but it bounced harmlessly off of Harry's shield and dissipated in the air. By the time his assailant had drawn breath for another assault, Harry had already completed his turn, and had his wand leveled between his assailant's eyes. "Yes," Harry said, mildly, "you will."_

_ They stood for a moment, assessing each other, each with his wand facing the other and a clear shot. Harry didn't recognize his assailant—he certainly wasn't any Deatheater Harry had ever seen, and he didn't remember having seen this man as one of Nott's associates. However, that hardly made the man any less of a threat. Harry had no shortage of enemies he didn't know, as the last couple of years had proved beautifully. The man looked to be about five years Harry's senior, in his early thirties at the oldest, with dark hair pulled into a short ponytail at the nape of his neck and blue eyes. He was taller than Harry, but then, most men his age were; he was also broader than Harry at the shoulders. All in all, the other man was attractive enough, but not especially remarkable, with the sort of face Harry wouldn't necessarily remember if he had seen it briefly at a Death eater gathering or something of the like. _

_ Then, slowly, the other man lowered his wand. "You have a valid point," he said, and though he did not replace his wand in whatever holster it had come from, he did bring it to his side, lessening his immediate threat. "Luckily, I wasn't trying to rob you or kill you, and so won't be very disappointed."_

_ Harry, who had learned his lesson about apparent peacefulness coming from those who had been threatening moments before, did not lower his wand. "Oh?" he asked, moving his wand into his preferred battle position, about level with his elbow. "Then why did you attack me in the middle of Knockturn Alley?"_

_ "That was hardly an attack," the other man said. Then, before Harry could correct his definition, the other man's lips raised into something like a half smile, and he shrugged, the gesture as innocuous as it might have seemed on a child. "Besides, to be fair, you have been looking for me."_

_ It only took Harry a few seconds to connect that statement. "You're Nicodemus Crane?" he asked._

_ "In the flesh," the other man said, and smiled fully. _

_ This was not who Harry had pictured, when he had begun a search for the man. To hear it told, Nicodemus Crane was an eighteen year old prodigy, a thousand year old sage, or possibly a witch in disguise. All accounts, however, agreed that the man was unforgettable. This man, with a face that __would blend into a crowd, was nothing like the titan he'd been built into in Harry's mind._

_ Still, Harry knew from experience how distorted reputation could make a person out to be, and the fact was that they _needed _this man. _

_ "Prove it," Harry said, and his wand did not waver._

_ The other man wordlessly raised his sleeve. "May I?" he asked, and gestured with his wand, indicating that he planned to swear an oath on his own blood. The method was a little archaic, but trustworthy—the magic in his veins would force the other man to speak the truth._

_ "Yes," Harry said, and the dream shifted—_

_ —"Yes, I understand that, Hermione," Harry said. "I really do. I just don't like the idea."_

_ Hermione gave him a cross look. "Harry James Potter," she said, as if she was still every bit the stern schoolgirl she had been when he'd been fifteen years old and refusing to do his Potions homework, "we've been over this again and again! You know we need some type of magical security. This is, as you so eloquently pointed out yesterday, a war, and I want us all to survive it."_

_ "But we don't know that it'll even work!" Harry said, pacing nervously across the room as he spoke. His feet were bare in preparation for the ritual, and the stones were cold beneath his feet._

_ "Which is why this is merely a precaution in the first place!" Hermione returned, with equal fervor. "If it is successful, then it will be an advantage we sorely need. If it isn't, we'll just annul the ritual after things calm down. I don't see why you're making such a big deal of this."_

_ Harry sank into a chair and looked up at his best friend, trying to make her understand. "Because things might never calm down," he said. "Because—because it might _work._"_

_ Looking perplexed that this was the matter her friend was worrying over, Hermione drew up another chair and sat beside Harry. "I don't understand," she said, and Harry knew that, as ever, that was the hardest admission for Hermione to make. "Why is that what you're afraid of?"_

_ "Because if it works, there's a chance I might meet him," Harry said. "Whoever the hell he is. Don't you see how that's terrifying?"_

_ "Oh, Harry," Hermione said, and her voice was holding suppressed laughter, "you are such a male. Everything in the world to be afraid of, and you pick commitment over the war that's on."_

_ "Yes, well," Harry said, as there really was no other answer to that. "That isn't the point, Hermione. This is a huge thing we're taking very lightly here."_

_ "Harry, I promise you, we'll nullify the ritual before there's any chance of you meeting him." Hermione looked so earnest, so certain of herself, that Harry's argument, for all its validity, disappeared from him._

_ "Oh, alright," he said, "I give up. Bring Nic in and let's get these runes painted."_

_ Hermione turned to the door and called out, "Nicodemus—" and the dream shifted again._

_ In Knockturn Alley, under a grey sky, the other man pressed a wand into the small cut on his forearm and told the air, "I swear on my magic that my name is Nicodemus Crane."_

_ "Well, good," Harry said, when a few moments had passed and no crippling pain had appeared on the other man's face. "I'm Harry Potter, and we have work to do."_

…

Shazza did not sleep well that night.

It was almost funny, actually, that she had so much difficulty getting to sleep, because the reason behind it was one she would never have considered. Before her marriage, certainly, she'd been terrible at sharing a bed, constantly being woken by any small noises her lovers might make, or by the way they tossed and turned in their sleep. With Zeke, it had been a little easier; he'd been mostly still and silent in his sleep, a total contrast to his energetic daytime self. Still, though, as much as Shazza had loved her husband, she'd never quite gotten used to sleeping next to another person regularly.

The irony of the fact that it was the emptiness of her bed that now kept her awake did not escape Shazza.

It wasn't dark, when she finally gave up on sleeping—it couldn't be dark, considering that this planet had three suns—but she felt as though it should have been. For a long while she lay in bed, staring at the ceiling of a room which was not hers, and feeling achingly tired and alone. Only by telling herself that Zeke would've laughed at her for this sort of self-pity was Shazza able to motivate herself to get up and move. It was easier, once she was out of bed and dressed; she had repairs to do, after all, and they wouldn't wait just because of her loss.

When she stepped outside, she realized the orange suns were just over the horizon. She'd slept through the setting of the blue sun, at least, which meant she'd gotten a few hours of rest. It wasn't much, but it was enough to be going on.

Feeling more herself, Shazza set off for the water pump in the center of camp.

The walk from the rooms they'd chosen to the open area of the pump wasn't particularly long. About halfway through it, though, Shazza started hearing faint noises: little things like sand being moved quickly, repeated impact against the ground by what sounded like feet, and a slight metallic ringing noise. Curious, despite a certain instinctive wariness, Shazza picked up her pace. The noises got progressively louder as she approached the water pump—one of the other survivors was already awake and doing something in the open area there. Shazza turned the last corner between herself and the noise and stopped, slightly stunned.

Oh, she'd seen Harry with the sword, obviously. Every one of them had. It wasn't as though a sword was a common weapon in this day and age. That, coupled with Harry's insistence on keeping it near, had made it an object of note to everyone on this planet, Shazza was sure of that. She'd also overheard Harry claiming he could use the sword, and had no cause to doubt him on that. However, knowing all those things was rather different than _seeing_ them.

What Shazza found in the open area was Harry, stripped to the waist and already starting to sweat, in the middle of what Shazza would have called a dance if she hadn't seen the sword in his hands.

Shazza was no sword fighter. She didn't even know what to call most of the motions Harry was carrying out, besides knowing that those movements were darting and precise and probably extremely lethal when used on an actual enemy instead of the air. Harry lunged and feinted and dodged back as though fighting an invisible opponent, his sword arm never quite still. He blocked blows and countered them, all the while quick on his feet, practically flying across the sand. When he finally came to a stop some minutes later, sunlight reflecting off of the sweat on his skin and his chest rising and falling rapidly, Shazza didn't doubt that Harry would have won that fight if there had been a real opponent.

He stayed still a moment longer, then raised his sword so that the blade was parallel with his forehead and flicked it back downwards, the movement seeming ceremonial and practiced. It wasn't until he'd completed that last salute that the fight seemed to drain from him; Harry's muscles relaxed as Shazza watched, and he lowered his sword to his side.

"That was beautiful, Harry," Shazza said, and watched as Harry flinched and spun towards her, sword raising again.

When he realized it was just her, the sword tip turned back down towards the ground. "Sorry," Harry said. He smiled, the expression a mix of rueful and self-deprecating. "I got a little caught up, there. I didn't know anybody else would be awake."

"Neither did I," Shazza said. She raised one hand and ran it through her hair. "Take it you didn't sleep too well, either?"

Harry just laughed slightly and said, "That would be a good guess, yeah." There was one moment where their eyes met and Shazza felt bizarrely connected to Harry; something in his eyes told her he knew how it felt to be kept awake by memories of things which had been lost. Even to herself, Shazza couldn't explain why she felt that way—Harry couldn't be older than thirty, and hadn't mentioned anyone important from his life before this planet. Then the moment was gone as Harry shook his head to clear a droplet of sweat from his eyes, and a rattle of metal turned Shazza's attention elsewhere.

Around Harry's neck, obvious against the bare skin of his chest, were a thin metal chain and a set of dogtags. Shazza frowned, and said, "Zeke mentioned you had dog tags, back when they first found you. I forgot about it 'til just now, though." It didn't escape her notice that Harry's free hand had come up to clasp the tags as soon as she mentioned them. "Are you a soldier?" she asked, curious about both the dogtags and Harry's reaction.

Harry laughed again, the sound darker than it had been before. "Everybody asks me that," Harry said. He met her eyes again, almost as though he was assessing her before he answered. "Yeah, I was a soldier. Fought in two wars, anyway."

"Which two?" Shazza asked, because it was easier than considering how young Harry must have been when he started fighting, if he was a veteran before he reached thirty, and easier than cataloging the many thin scars that marked Harry's chest.

Harry just shook his head. "You wouldn't recognize their names if I told you. It wasn't—we only won the first, anyway."

Something clicked in Shazza's mind, then. "Is that why you were in that pod, when we first landed? You were a prisoner of war?"

"Something like that," Harry said, after a long moment's pause. His free hand scratched idly at his jaw, and he turned away from her, moving towards his discarded shirt and the scabbard of his sword. "Don't mention it to the others, alright?" Harry asked, the request shot back over his shoulder towards her. He reached the building his scabbard was leaned against and picked up his shirt, using it to clean his blade of sand before he sheathed the weapon. Then he pulled it over his head and buckled back on the belt he'd been using, slipping the scabbard into its place. "It's not exactly something I like to talk about."

Shazza thought of everything that had happened on this planet since they had crashed, of hollow spires and Zeke lost to the dark. "I can understand that," she said, and something in her voice made Harry turn back around and look at her.

"Hey," he said, voice softer, kinder than she'd ever heard it before. "You holding up?"

Shazza shrugged and smiled tightly. "As best I can," she said.

Harry returned her smile, though his seemed more genuine. "Anything I can help you with?"

"That water pump, for one," Shazza said, tilting her head towards the broken machine. "An extra set of hands wouldn't hurt anything." She looked up to the sky, checking how much further the orange suns had progressed. "The others'll probably be up soon enough, and then we'll see what needs doing on the transport ship."

"That's assuming this sun cycle is daytime for everyone else," Harry pointed out. "It could be that the others will sleep until the orange suns are setting, and be awake for the blue sun. We don't exactly have a universal night here, Shazza. Unless we get everyone together and call one sun cycle nighttime, we could all be awake on completely different cycles our whole time here."

Shazza thought about that for a moment and shrugged. "Well, the two of us are sharing a day cycle, at least. If the others don't wake up, we'll wait them out and work out time issues when the blue sun's up. As long as the two of us are awake, we may as well be productive."

"That's fair," Harry said. "Tell me where you need me, then. I'm gonna warn you in advance that I'm not exactly skilled at repairs."

"Which is why your job is holding a part still for me while I fix it," Shazza informed him. "You'll want to stand over there."

As the orange suns slowly crossed the sky, they got to work.

…

By the time the others started trickling out of their rooms, the orange suns had passed the highest point of their cycle, and Harry and Shazza had the water pump working.

"Well, isn't this a pleasure?" Johns asked, when, as the first one out to the pump, he was handed a full cup of clean water. "You two have been industrious." Harry might even have taken that last as praise, if not for the usual undercurrent of derision in Johns' drawl.

"It wasn't that broken to start with," Shazza said, looking at the fixed pump with something like pride. "This is good machinery. It'll hold a long while after we're off this planet."

"Assuming we get off this planet," Johns said. Harry glared him down for his trouble.

The others ventured out slowly. Fry was the next out, followed by the Imam and his apprentices and Jack shortly after. Paris came nearly fifteen minutes after that, long enough for Fry and Shazza to have wandered off to take another look at the ship together. Harry didn't doubt Riddick had been awake a good while—he'd heard faint movements around the settlement that would be best explained by another person moving about—but he didn't deign to join the survivors in the square until everyone else had gathered.

"So," Jack said, when Fry and Shazza had returned and still no one had made any plans to leave the area, "are we having a meeting, or what?"

Johns and Fry met each others eyes; Fry shrugged, and Johns tapped his hand idly against his leg. Apparently some conclusion was reached between them, because Johns said, "Yes." Then, before Jack had a chance to respond, he added, "Adults only."

"You suck," Jack said, crossing his arms and setting his mouth in a thin line. Propped against a wall across from Jack, Harry noticed that Riddick snorted slightly in amusement.

"Language," Johns said. "And run off a while."

The Imam intervened in the conversation before Harry could. In his native tongue, he spoke a few words to his apprentices, each of whom nodded and spoke in response. "My boys will go with you," the Imam said to Jack, in a tone entirely too solemn to be mistaken for condescension. Jack, being the age he was, managed to mistake it anyway.

"Fine," the boy said, looking vexed with the world at large, "have your stupid meeting." He turned to walk away; without any signal, the Imam's boys followed after.

"Do not wander far," the Imam called after them. His eldest apprentice called back something Harry could not understand, but took to be agreement given the holy man's satisfied expression.

With the children of the group gone, the feeling of the square changed rapidly. Harry was amused to see they'd placed themselves according to alliance and intention, despite the large area available to them. Shazza, predictably, was standing near to the water pump, her hands wrapped around her tool belt and her facial expression one of pleasure at a job well done. Harry had carefully placed himself on her left, where he would be able to draw his sword right-handed in order to protect her if need be—he knew he was probably taking her protection far too seriously, but also considered himself a little entitled now that he knew what was out there. Riddick was standing against a wall to Shazza's far left, positioned so that he had a clean line of vision on both Harry and Johns at once.

On the other side of the open area, Paris leaned against the wall farthest from Riddick, in a position that placed Johns and Fry between him and the murderer. The cop and pilot in question stood together at the center of the square, one cohesive unit as ever. Harry wondered, idly, what it would take to break that loyalty—he wasn't sure he wanted to, not when their little group of misfits needed some sort of organized leadership, but it did make for an interesting minute's thought. Apart from the rest stood the Imam, and though the holy man looked to Johns, he also did not flinch away from meeting Riddick's eyes. Without the influence of the children of the group, the whole situation felt exactly as politically charged as it was. It almost amused Harry to see just how divided their group had become in only two days.

"So," Johns said at last, breaking the silence. "We need to know what we've got, and what we don't. Ideas?"

"We have working water," Shazza informed him. "Clean, too. This pump has a pretty solid purifier, and what seems like a large supply. We won't be running out any time soon."

"So, water, liquor, a few containers of oxygen, and a few sets of spare clothes," Harry summarized. "It's something to work with."

"Yes," Paris said, "but I would hate for any of us to overlook the small issue of the fact that we _have no food_." His tone was sarcastic, and also far more confident than Harry had heard it before. Pushing his glasses up his nose, Paris meet Harry's eyes, his expression that of someone who had dealt a personal assault. Well, Harry hadn't exactly known that Paris' dislike for him had become so strong, but it was better to learn now than later.

"I've been thinking about that, actually," Shazza said. "There has to be some sort of food on this planet."

"Just because you say so?" Fry asked, revealing another animosity Harry hadn't quite expected. He realized, suddenly and unpleasantly, that a large part of the work ahead of them was going to be keeping themselves together as a group long enough to repair their ship—just two days in and already they were falling apart.

Shazza shook her head. "No. Because there are animals underground, obviously."

Fry looked confused at that—Harry couldn't say he understood any better. "Mind clarifying that one for us?" Johns asked.

It was Riddick, however, who answered. "Look around," he said, and Harry looked to him instinctively. Riddick met his eyes and smiled, a small quirk of his lips which seemed oddly personal, meant for Harry alone. "This place's been abandoned ten, twenty years, I'd say. Ship's crashed, but no bodies—one of you has to have realized something got 'em. My bet's on the whispers under the ground. And if a group of animals survives twenty years, they've got to have food."

"Exactly," Shazza said, though Harry noticed how disquieted agreeing with the murderer seemed to make her. "No ecosystem can sustain itself for years on end without food—it's just biologically impossible. And if there's something on this planet they can eat, chances are there's something we can eat too."

"So what's our plan?" Fry asked.

"I want to do some scouting," Shazza said. "If there is something that can be eaten on this planet, I'm our best bet at finding it."

Johns shook his head. "We need you on the repairs."

"Only for the first few days," Shazza said, disagreeing in turns. "After that, Fry's on her own. I'm a prospector, not a mechanic. I'm good for welding on the plating we need to patch up the hull, but I can't put an engine to rights. Three days from now, I'll be in the way anyway."

"Three days," Paris said. "In three days, none of us will have eaten for five days already. Is that too long?"

"We're all healthy," Harry said. "We can go another week after that before we start really feeling the effects of hunger. We haven't much choice anyway."

Johns deliberated a moment, then said, "Alright, but you take Riddick and Potter with you."

"Why?" the Imam asked. It wasn't until that moment that Harry noticed how silent the man had been all along. Harry met the holy man's eyes and realized the Imam meant to act as a mediator between factions, not taking any great part or any side himself. It was something of a relief, actually—Harry hated playing referee.

"Because he doesn't care if we don't come back," Harry said, softly. Some distance away, Riddick laughed, the sound low and rumbling.

"To protect our tracker," Johns said. Harry was fairly certain he wasn't the only one who found the protest weak.

Paris opened his mouth to speak at the exact same moment that Riddick came to attention, large body moving away from the wall he had been slouching against. Harry had learned what that expression meant on the murderer's face—Riddick was listening to something on the air, something only his ears were sharp enough to catch. "Shut up," Harry hissed, almost on instinct, never turning away from watching Riddick.

"Excuse me?" Paris spluttered, and seemed to gear up for a tirade. Harry just met the other man's eyes and refused to look away or blink. When Paris settled, his whole posture becoming defensive and stiff under Harry's gaze, Harry jerked a finger at Riddick's tense form. That was enough for the others to recognize what was going on too.

"Riddick?" Johns said, quietly, one hand curling around his gun in its holster. Harry realized in that moment that his own right hand was tight around the hilt of his sword, and he had already begun to ease it out of its scabbard.

"Quiet," Riddick said. Harry had a feeling that Riddick had closed his eyes under the goggles, and was focusing entirely on whatever sound he had heard.

In that moment, Harry heard it too. Somewhere, a machine had whirred slowly into life, displacing air as it went—somewhere in the industrial section of the settlement. Harry closed his own eyes and listened, wondering why he had such a bad feeling about this sound.

"Harry?" Shazza asked. Harry gestured that she should be silent, and trusted that she would obey. There was something—

Softly, so softly that Harry might not have heard it if his ears had not been carefully trained to track the sound, a hiss rent the air, trailing into a shriek just moments later. Harry knew that word, had heard it before, both in Hogwarts and here in the settlement. He struggled with its meaning and pitch for a moment, and then his mind ordered it into intelligible sounds and Harry felt himself going very cold.

HUNGRY, a small voice had wailed into the wind. SO HUNGRY. _FOOD—MEAT—EAT._

"_No_," Harry said, and was running before he had finished saying the word.

…**.I am kind of evil, leaving you off on a cliffhanger like that. -grins- However, everything will be resolved next chapter. Just one week. **

**If you got this far, please take a second and review. Getting input from my readers not only makes my day, but also helps me to improve my writing and make the story more interesting for you to read. It doesn't take very long to review, and I do love hearing from my readers. **

**Thank you to everyone who reviewed for last chapter. As I said, I'll be responding personally to those reviews in a minute or so—I'm always careful to respond to each of my reviewers individually, as I really do appreciate your input. Thanks also to all those who favorited Lares or added it to their story alerts. :)**

**Next chapter~ In which a crisis occurs, Shazza and Fry do not play well together, and Harry, Riddick and Shazza start the search for food.**


	9. Chapter 9

**Author's note: This is less an actual chapter and more a statement of intent. Yes, I am still writing this story; yes, eventually a full length chapter will be out; no, Lares isn't dead. Unfortunately I have six finals over the next two weeks and approximately zero time to write, which is why I'm publishing this instead of finishing the chapter first and then publishing it. It's been sort of a crazy year for writer's block, school work, and health problems among my family, but it's calmed down now, and I have every intention of finishing this story.**

**Please enjoy this snippet of a chapter, and I hope to be back with a full new chapter relatively soon. :)**

Harry _ran_.

He was fast—he'd always been fast, had had plenty of practice at running starting from when he was a child running from Dudley and continuing through his entire adult life—but he was faster now than he'd had cause to be in some time. Harry had been quick when he was running after Shazza, but that had been with his hands bound and with far less motivation than he had now. Now, there could be a child involved, and Harry had lost too many children already.

_Everything was chaos and smoke, fires of a million impossible shades shooting past Harry from every direction, meant to confuse and blind. Harry stayed low and moved fast, turning every now and again to make sure the family behind him was keeping up; even so, he knew they weren't moving fast enough. "Come on come on come on," he chanted breathlessly as he ran, hoping it would somehow propel them all to safety._

_ There was a shriek—one of the children had fallen over a root, and the mother had stopped to pick him up. Harry swung around and moved to her, moving her away and taking the child himself. "I've got him, you need to keep moving," he said._

_ "Please let me," the child's mother said—Harry couldn't place her name or recognize her, but he needed to get her out alive all the same. Her pupils were thrown huge from the darkness of the forest and from fear, and her hands reached out for her child._

_ Harry had to shake his head. "I'm stronger than you and faster," he said, urgently, "please keep going. I'll keep him safe." She stared a moment longer, the pause one they could not afford, and Harry felt his heart beat faster in his chest, felt every drag of air into his lungs._

_ Then Neville called out from behind, quietly enough to avoid detection but clearly enough to be audible over the din. "Harry, they're right behind us." Luna shot past Harry without acknowledging him, taking the lead he'd abandoned, her blonde hair visible against the dark as she urged the family on. They couldn't afford to wait, and the mother saw it—reluctantly, she nodded, and turned again to run._

_ Harry held the boy probably too tight for comfort and ran again, more slowly now with the added weight. He didn't have a hand free for his wand, but that was alright; he'd already pulled his magic to the surface of his skin, ready for wandless casting. "Nic, come on, please," he said, and felt the child he was holding shift in confusion—he clenched his fingers to keep the boy from wriggling and had to drop to the ground to avoid a bright red shot of magic that looked like a bonebreaker. He pushed himself upwards, somehow without dropping the child, and pushed on. "They're right behind us, Nicodemus, come on, hurry." It wasn't like Nic could hear him, but it made Harry feel better._

_ Then heat flared against his chest, his dog tags burning hot against his chest, and Harry felt relief despite the pain. "Everyone hold on!" he shouted, loudly enough to make himself a target, and grabbed blindly for the people closest him, seeing Neville and Luna do the same. "Crane," he said, and the portkey in the dog tags triggered, dragging him dizzily out of there—_

_ He landed inelegantly on the floor of the main hall of Nicodemus' manor, feeling as usual as though he'd been pulled inside out, but also feeling proud. They'd gotten another family out, away from Reeducation—they were done. "Thank Merlin," Harry said, and collapsed against the stone floor, letting go of the child in his arms. He'd gotten a child out safe—this woman's son would be safe. __They would all be safe. Harry felt like he could fly without a broomstick, adrenaline crashing through his body and making him giddy._

_ The feeling lasted only moments._

_ "Where is my daughter?" the mother asked, her voice level at first but growing shrill with panic when there wasn't an answer, and Harry's heart sank._

_ They hadn't gotten everyone—_

Harry jerked back into his own mind from the recollection. He'd lost only a moment to it, but he couldn't afford even seconds now. He had to hold himself together, had to keep running.

_HUNGRY_, a hiss-shriek on the air reminded him, and Harry moved.

He found the source of the mechanical noise moments later—a large building in the industrial section with something solar powered squeaking on the roof. He didn't stop to listen to the sounds inside, but instead physically threw himself at the door of the building. It creaked under his weight but didn't open, still locked. Harry knew that someone had gotten inside somehow, but he didn't have time to look for another entrance. For all he knew there was a child-sized hole he wouldn't be able to use anyway, and he had to get inside now. He looked at the door—the hissing rose in pitch—a child screamed inside—he wasn't—

_"—strong enough, Harry," Nicodemus said._

_ Harry looked up at the sound of his voice, lowering the point of his practice sword. Nic was leaning against one wall of the room, though Harry had no idea of how long he'd been there for. "Am I really doing that badly?" he asked, drawing circles in the air with the tip of his blade to illustrate his point. He'd first been taught how to use a sword almost three years ago now, when he'd first met Nic and joined the underground movement—it was a skill that had sometimes been useful, as Nic had insisted it would be. Harry hadn't thought there was much left for Nicodemus to complain about where his sword style was concerned._

_ Nic waved his hand vaguely through the air. "I wasn't talking about that," he said, and pushed off of the wall to come closer. "I mean in general. You aren't strong enough." Nic circled around Harry, a gesture with an almost predatory edge, and Harry sighed._

_ "Really not in the mood right now, Nic," he said, and Nicodemus laughed._

_ "I've got a new trick for you," Nicodemus said, as though Harry hadn't said anything, and despite himself Harry paid attention. Nic had been holed up in the basement for a few days now, consumed in another one of his experiments—apparently that experiment had been successful, if Nic's behavior was anything to go on. For all that Nicodemus could irritate the hell out of Harry at times, he knew better than to turn down help from Nic where magic was concerned. Completely without any apparent segue, Nic asked, "What do you know about Muggle physics, Harry?"_

_ The correct answer to this was almost nothing, but Harry didn't even have to give it—Nic was in the sort of mood where Harry's answer wouldn't affect anything he said. Excitement, pride and a little arrogance all clear in his voice, Nic said, "To make a very simplified explanation of something __very complicated, magic is a form of energy." He spread out one palm and wandlessly called up a ball of light in his hand, saying the incantation for the spell under his breath. It glowed white and did not flicker as fire would. "And, as Einstein so brilliantly proved, energy is mass." The ball of light condensed into itself and solidified, forming a sphere in Nic's hand that still seemed to glow faintly. "And," Nic said, sounding pleased with himself, "mass, under the right conditions, is an impetus for force." He flipped his palm, letting the ball drop—it landed with a loud resounding thud, hitting the floor hard enough to chip off thin fragments of stone. Nic beamed like a child in a candy store._

_ Harry knew he'd missed a point somewhere. "No offense, Nic, but wouldn't it be much less complicated to summon a rock if you needed to do that? Are we supposed to lob magic at the Enforcers and hope they go away?"_

_ Nicodemus rolled his eyes. "That was just a physical demonstration of the underlying principle," Nic said, as though that had been obvious. "It's not meant to be used that way, obviously. I'm calling it force magic as an operative name—it's meant to increase physical strength." Harry just looked at him, knowing his silence would provoke further explanation. "You aren't strong enough," Nic said, again, "and this will change that. It's like transfiguring your own body to make it stronger, but it takes less magic—and the advantage is that the magic never has to physically leave your own body to work, so it can't be shielded against. It changes your physical strength from the inside out, unlike transfiguration."_

_ "How, exactly?" Harry asked._

_ "Here," Nic said, "let me," and he grabbed Harry by the shoulders without waiting for permission. Harry thought to protest, but didn't actually bother, considering that he had actively encouraged Nic to touch him not so long ago, and trying to remind Nic that permission no longer existed would just be a waste of time right now. "Picture your magic like you do for wandless casting," Nic said, and Harry closed his eyes and did as he was told. The core of his magic glowed inside him, as it always did. "Magic is energy," Nic said, quietly. "Move that energy to your hands like you would if you were casting. Now turn that energy into mass." Harry pictured his magic solidifying, like it had in Nic's palm, and felt his hands and the muscles of his arms grow physically heavier. "And mass is force, Harry," Nicodemus said, and Harry felt his magic make it true, reach out his arms and pushed—_

The door to the building broke open under the force of Harry's combined magic- and adrenaline-boosted strength, and Harry was through the door in an instant.

**I realize this doesn't actually resolve the awful cliffhanger I left you poor folks with, but I'm hoping you'd prefer this to two or three more weeks of complete radio silence from me.**

**I don't have time to respond to every review I've gotten since I last wrote Lares, unfortunately, but I would like to say that I deeply appreciated every single one. Thank you so much to everyone who wished my grandfather well—fortunately he's doing alright now, though it was rough for a little while—and to everyone who asked whether this story would be updated and helped nudge me out of my writer's block. You all made my day, you awesome readers you. :)**


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